KC

Yeah, not very long ago Casey (Chestnut brown with white stockings, my favorite type of horse.) was actually KC but I think I prefer Casey more than a short formed name, after today's lesson I think I realized what KC meant, I have a feeling it's krazykicking Casey..!

Well just to get you a bit more excited, I actually (Let's see, I rode Casey on my second lesson with that instructor that never returned and I kinda fell but not to the floor, hugged it's neck until I was helped off, so I don't really think that's considered a fall, right? Oh fine, half fall, happy?) fell off Krazykicking Casey.
Okay enough, let me torture you with the boring stuff. MWAHAHA?

Today I got Casey because... I am not exactly sure why but I think it's because I won't get too used to riding King and if I get put on another horse I won't be able to ride it?

I should skip the waking up, breakfast and leaving the house and reaching the stables part...
If you need to know I woke up at a VERY chilly 7AM, had a piece of buttered toast for breakfast and we reached the stables pretty early so we got to play with the horses a bit.

Getting on Casey seemed easier than King, it's either his shorter or I am getting better.. Or maybe both?

Did the usual walking x6 rounds, I was pretty surprised on it's ability to not do the sleep walk (King enjoys doing that when he isn't fully awake yet or during the early morning lessons.) or trot but at the perfect walking speed which was quite hard get obtain when I was riding King because first he would do his groggy sleep walk and when I ask him to go faster AKA kick him, he starts trotting!
I guess I was somewhat pleased with it's walking since I didn't have to kick (Trust me... Kicking the horse lightly for 6 rounds is quite tiring, I told you the rider does more work than the horse!) him much and I could reeeellaaaaxxx... And leave my waist loose to follow his err.. Walking rhythm thing. I felt pretty jellyfishy!

I was pretty shocked when I asked it to trot because I would usually kick King a lot (He's stubborn, trust moi. And lazy.. And 6 years older than Casey.) and do that "tsk tsk tsk" clicking tongue thing before it started to move while I only had to double click and Casey would "Vroooooooooooooooooom", that kinda pumped a lot of adrenaline (And a half a second panic!) around my head!

It was SOOOO fun going super speedy trotting (Rising trot, sitting trot isn't possible at that speed! It is possible but I don't exactly feel like bouncing my head off!) around the "Sandy training pen", I was the only one there (Fai was there too but he was in the middle so it doesn't bother me much.) and it was kinda awesome seeing the mist of sand behind you, very good for pretending you are in some Wild westish scene! The only thing that is missing is the cactus, your cowboy hat and rope!

then, Then, THEN... I decided to practice the jumping position thingy (Lift ya butt off the saddle when your horse is trotting and basically just balance on your stir ups while leaning forward a little, it REALLY tests your balancing skills! And mine apparently isn't all that good..) which I learnt during the last lesson, too lazy to blog about that since the only thing new was the jumping preparation, I really had no clue that I was going to be doing the jumping over hurdles thing...

It was pretty hard to figure out what speed it was going at and little did I know it was going to start to canter!
So while I was balancing on the stir ups it started to canter without my knowledge!
Obviously I lost balance did the hug-neck-thing but somehow my hands slipped a little and plop on the sand I went!
The only thing that was on my mind at that time was probably "Please don't stomp on me!"!
When Casey stopped (I didn't get dragged around, I still have no idea how my feet got out of the stir ups so easily! Well I am VERY glad my feet didn't get stuck in the stir ups cause I would probably be dragged if I didn't!) I got up and dusted the sand off (The only thought in my head then was probably "Oh mai JODHPURS!! It looked as though as I was wearing sand more than a pair of jodhpurs!) and hopped back on Casey without the instructor teaching Fai's knowledge!
I think he caught me climbing back on, I remember his eyes nearly popping out as he came running!

I still have no idea what I did since I didn't get even a scratch or even an aching joint!
Oh well, hooray for meee!
A very good lesson learnt, don't try new "moves" on a new horse (That you don't know how fast it can go.), it may get scary but it's always good learning it this way instead of someone/your instructor telling it to you because... It doesn't seem to really get drilled into your brain.

Just after I got on the owner (Auntie Zarina's husband if you remember me mentioning her name from one of my previous horsey posts.) of the horsey academy (Justa make it sound FIAANNNCYYY, hahaha!) came running and apologizing that he was late and when the staff called him to say that I was already on Casey he started rushing here!
He asked me if I cantered already, I said yes, he said me if I fell, I said yes, see? I am always one step ahead of everyone, hah!
Then I got asked if I was alright or not and I replied (Maybe snapped, can't really remember.) "I AM alive right?!", that's my typical reply when someone asks me that dumb question, I mean, why ask if I look alright? Weird face*


Stopping Casey (I seem to get more tired riding Casey, I think it is quite obvious why! And it's harder keeping Casey collected, err.. Head tuck down and more likely to follow instructions? So I did that pull left rein, pull right rein so much that I kinda have a bubbly blister on one ring finger and some skin peeled of on the other one. Just in case you were wondering you don't use your pinky as the last finger when you grip the reins, you use your ring finger and thumb to lock the reins in place. Pinkies up and pretend you are having a nice cuppa tea!) was another problem cause I needed to pull my hands, wait, wrist off and bounce around in the saddle a bitlot (You're not suppose stop with your butt floating in midair, hahaha!), I am not sure what's more tiring.. Riding him or stopping him!

I think the rest of the lesson went quite alright, not my best but ookkkaaayy I suppose and as usual the 1 1/2 hours zoomed by too quickly!

When I got home I found a ton of sand in my boots, socks and jodhpurs, no wonder it felt rather uncomfortable...

~K



   

@ KL

It's now 1.36AM and I could just fall asleep anytime now but I have that "un-complete" feeling drifting around somewhere in my mind and to complete it.. I need to blog, haven't blogged much lately, I think.

Have been lazy, as usual.

Left the house at 730AM in my grandparent's Kembara, long story.. My Mom's car was in a workshop in PJ, my Grandparent's car broke down when they were in PD so they stayed here for an extra 2-3 days, they needed to do stuff in their farm in Melaka and the car still wasn't done yet so they used my Dad's car to drive there and THAT car broke down somewhere in Melaka, so we were carless for a day or two and we had SO much "instant" stuff (Instant noodles, roti canai, nuggets, mushroom soup and marmite soup etc.) that I actually got fed up (Imagine that...), so anyways, the Kembara was out of the workshop and we used that car to go down to KL and did I mention...? The air conditioning doesn't work. 

We (We= Mommy, Papa, me and Ean, left the other two boys at home.) kinda left early to avoid the sunnyness, yeah, I come from a family of vampires.

Wound down the windows to breath, by the time we reached KL (About 1 1/2 hours later..) I am pretty sure my face felt rather numb from all that find and my throat felt rather yucky and dry from all that smog, yuck.

  

Our first stop of the day was.. Back to my ol' neighborhood (It's nice being there again, I am not sure why. I just... Kinda miss it somehow I suppose there were a lot of memories created there, good ones.) to collect my Mom's car then have breakfast at our favorite "Mamak" shop that was next to the playground, Shannar Curry House I think it's called, it somehow doesn't seem to be spelt right over here but oh well.

It was our when Mommy-is-lazy-to-cook or when we got bored of Domino's (Why.don't.they.have.it.in.PORT DICKSON?! Pepperoni pizza... Mmmm...) place to eat and we ate there like.. At least 3 times a week!

I suppose I kinda missed my all time favorite "Maggi Goreng" (Fried instant noodles with vegetables and tofu which I usually push aside.), "Roti canai" and orange juice!

I think you can pretty much guess what I had, right?

After a hearty breakfast we (Mommy, me and Ean.) were dropped off at the PJ library, they were doing some rather not so major renovation and it was quite dark and abandoned looking (They ripped all the ceiling boards off and the return-borrow books counter..!) on the ground floor and it had a rather scary aura...

Made my way up the stairs (Using the lift alone feels even more scary this time round so I shall stick with my all time favorite stairs.) to the first floor, nothings changed, same books, same authors, it was getting boring..

When I find a new interesting series I borrow the whole thing then when I return it I am lost again, yeesh.

And of course, it was FREEZING and rather empty.. My borrowed-from-Mommy green scarf helped a bit but it was still hard to do anything, not long after I made my way down to a very dark room (It's usually pretty bright but I am not sure what happened.) called the "Kid's area", found Mommy and Ean there and decided to drag them to the cafe where it was warmer while we waited to get picked up, yawn.. I am getting sleepy so let's jump to Plaza Ampang City, hey! Did anyone realize it rhymes? 

We planned to go horse riding gear shopping earlier but we always seemed rather busy so it was postponed till today and of course, I felt rather excited, I always do when I get to go S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G!

Plaza Ampang City wasn't exactly what I expected it to be it was a rather old fashioned building with an ancient lift, the first thing I spotted when we were out of the lift was the "Equine KL" logo, actually it was the rows and rows of grand pianos on sale (For a split second I thought they were coffins..) but I suppose that doesn't count, eh?

 There were two "Equine KL" shops, one for the rider and one for the horse, didn't get to see the horse one though.

It was like horse rider's heaven in there, it was quite interesting to see what was inside a "Tack shop", the most interesting/amusing thing was probably the sunglasses that look two big huge fly eyes! 

Oh, and you would never guess how much the cost! I think I could have made my own out of mosquito netting and a small tea sieve and it would have costed... 1/4 Of the price! But who on earth wants to wear fly eye sunglasses?!

It was eye candy looking at the SHINee, whoops (It is kinda auto now, need.to.cut.down.my.kapooping!), I mean shiny helmets (But the price tag certainly was very eye candyish, it was eye popping outish, I don't understand why helmets cost so much..) and the rainbow colored jodhpurs!

I absolutely LOVE the word "Jodhpurs" (It's a strange word and I somehow enjoy saying it a lot! Jodhpurs, jodhpurs, jodhpurs!), at least it sounds much better than horse riding pants and certainly VERY much more posh and a couple of steps later you come to this tiny room filled with riding BOOTS! 

Let's see, ever since I had feet (I am not sure when I didn't.) I have ALWAYS liked boots (I don't know why, I just like stompy boots but not high heeled ones unless there is a secret knife in the heel..) but never once did I get a pair of boots so... Fingers crossed?

Until today I had NO idea that jodhpurs came in so many colors!

It thought there would just be the standard black, khaki and brown but I did secretly pray taht they would have some other colors or purple and... WALAH!

They had this beautiful maroon purpleish colored pair on jodhpurs, mmm....  
Didn't have to look at the rest once I tried the purple pair of jodhpurs on.
Jodhpurs= The most comfortable pair of "fitting" I have ever worn pants next to leggings, my jeans felt rather/very hard when I changed back into it!

then, Then, THEN! (I kinda forgot how I got to this part..)
I COULD GET BOOTS!
I WAS OVER THE MOON HAPPY!
LALALALALALALALA!
Ooh, look! A whole rack to choose from!
Brown boots, black boots (I wonder why they don't have a whole range of colors to choose from like the jodhpurs, I think I would suggest that to them.), lacy uppy boots, long farmer boots, short stumpy boots, zippy boots, hard stiff boots, soft furry boots! (Hahaha! I feel like Dr Suess, somehow. One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish!)
After trying all (Or almost all.) of the above I decided on a not too low (It's rather ugly and it looks like men's err... Office working shoes? And my jodhpurs are a little too short for me so it's going to look awkward unless I cover it up with chaps but I don't really need them yet so I didn't get them this time round, I don't think I will need them ever though..) or high (I LOVE high boots but too bad I had to get a custom made one because well... My feet are too big for my skinny legs so the boots don't exactly "hug" my calf and it looks as though as I am wearing RM10 "pasar malam" rubber boots! A custom made pair of boots cost 2-3 times more than the "un-custom" made ones!) pair, a nice black lace in the front (To adjust so it will "hug" your err... Lower calf?), zip at the back (So I don't have to re-tie them every single time.), black, stompy pair of boots!
I got booooots! Wheeepeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!




It's always VERY nice when you get what you have always dreamed for and mine was: Black lace up boot and a pair of jeans that wasn't blue, khaki or black, I think I didn't exactly do the jeans part but still...
And they happen to be the MOST expensive pair of pants and shoes I have EVER bought, I guess I am very budgetty shopper, I remember Machika calling me a good "backpacker" (We plan to travel the world on a budget, we both agree that the funnest things in the world are travelling and eating!) on one of our shopping trips!

I think I will just fast forward this part a bit.. Pushes the fast forward button*
*Note: Read this part extremely fast so you get the fast forward effect.

Thenwewenttoanother"mamak"shop(Again!Ithinkwemissittoomuch!)thatwasafloorabovethehorseyshop,huggedmy"EquineKL"bagasthoughasitwasmyfavoritepillow,itwasjustasprecioustomebutofcourseidon'tthinkIwouldeverwanttohugapairofridingbootstosleepandicouldneverbeartowearmyfavoritepillowonmy..Feet.
KindafellasleeponceIsatonthecarseat,Iamnotsurewhatexhaustedmesomuch..Ithinkitwasallthatallthathoppingandbouncingaround(Mentallyandphysically.)duetoexcitementinthehorseyrider'sgearshop!
ThenextthingIknewIwasawakeatatrafficlightandinfrontofmewasSungaiWangPlaza,wewerefollowingmyDadtohisweeklyRotarymeetingtoday.
Wewere2hoursormaybe3hoursearlysoweparkedthecarinBanker'sCluandwalkedovertoSungaiWangtokilltimeand..GetEuHan's5thbirthdaypresent.
Aftersomeaimlesswalking(Papacalleditpresenthunting..MeandMommycalleditaimlesswalking.)andTransformerbuyingwemadeourwaybacktoBanker'sClubforthemeeting.

If you managed to read all that.. CONGRATULATIONS, if not.. Too bad? Who knew my secret codes (I am a detective in disguise... I think I am a pretty bad one too.) were so hard, eh?

The last time I was here (And on the same floor! The 22nd and highest I think.), I was delivering the vet wedding cake.. I wonder if that was a good memory or a bad one..?

This weeks topic was: The need some villages have for clean water supply.
I know, it sounds VERY VERY boring, I thought that too, until the speaker, Siti Kassim started speaking...

The villages were Orang Asli (Direct translation: People Original, I think you may need to turn that around..) and 4 Orang Asli (2 Were getting sickish after less than 24 hours in KL! Proves how very polluted KL is compared to the outskirts..) from Gua (Or was it Gunung? I don't think they live in a cave.. Quick translation: Gua=Cave, Gunung=Mountain.) Musang, Kelantan joined us as well and they were all wearing tri color (Black, brown and yellowish, all natural, un-dyed! It took two hours to make one, I don't think I could ever be that patient..) hand weaved ratan bracelets, oh how much I love Malaysian Orang Asli handicraft (Actually I like any kind of "crafted" jewelry but this one's Malaysian and un-plastic so it's a wee bit more special to me.)!

Siti spoke about the "issues" the 18 Orang Asli tribes around peninsula Malaysia had but more onto the water side, in a way that made me hang onto her every word because well... It was certainly very interesting.

How the government intrude into their land without their permission, start clearing their land to plant oil palm or just logging, their rivers and streams become clogged up with eroded soil, chemical from the I-am-not-sure-what-I-kinda-forgot, it becomes so filthy that they cannot bath in it cause the chemical eats into their skin or gives them skin disease, let alone drink it.
Then one of the Orang Asli men spoke up and said that it looks so much like tea you just needed to add sugar to drink it!
At that moment I kinda pictured the "tea" going down your throat and eating all the organ-tissue-thing (Oh dear, how on earth can I forget what it's called?! I think I just failed my biology test.) it passes like acid, eek, scary thought..
And then they are moved away from their land to some very small "shacks" to live in that were only a feet apart from each other and they were promised to have electricity (There is an electricity pole there and wires to the house but no electricity running through it..) and clean water but that didn't happen and not long after the shacks started collapsing...

It was a rather pitiful and inspiring (Somehow.) speech that I enjoyed lots, I am feeling very sleepy now so I shan't continue..

Karen
P.S Did you know Karen is a name of a an Orang Asli tribe?! And the women like lots of jewelry and beads, just like me!       

Peek-

A-boo?

I have a feeling I haven't posted in ages, I wanted to but after writing half a post I got, as usual... Lazy. Grin*

Anyways just in case you were wondering what I wanted to post about it was about our trip down to KL on... Thursday to the science center since Mommy organized another one of her lab experiment trips there, the boys went for some air/parachute experiment/making thing and I went for some robotics with Lego thing.

Let's see we were there a COUPLE of hours early, I think we were there at 11+ when the lab session things were supposed to start at 230 PM so we had a bit of brunch (I don't think we had anything before leaving PD so I suppose it's more of a breakfast.) at the Malay cafe that was right outside the science center, the last time we visited the cafe, it was newly renovated and VERY empty but at least now they had some Malay "Chap fun" (Lets see that's basically... Rice and a range of dishes to choose from and pile on top of your rice.) and my syrup, no Malay meal is complete without my rose syrup (It's basically sugar and lots of pink food coloring, I wonder if it was made with real squashed roses last time? As in a.. Few hundred years ago? Or maybe it didn't even come from Malaysia... Oh well if it were made out of squashed roses I wouldn't get my beautiful pink tongue after drinking a whole cup!)!

After brunch I kinda remembered how super freezing the library (Had a feeling that we were going to hang around there for awhile since I was dragging some very heavy library books around for some time..) was (For the past... 10 visits I became a human bag of frozen butter cream.) and decided to borrow my Mom's green sarong scarf thingy to wrap around my neck and that made me feel rather posh so I decided to do my fancy posh, flippy hair (I mean scarf.) walk (I always seem to do that when I feel "posh" and I can't exactly describe  what I have to do to feel posh... Oh well, at least you know wearing a scarf is one of them.) back to the building which made burst out laughing less than... 2 Minutes, it's funny how I can never succeed in doing that.

Above:
Decided to walk around the science center (Oh right! The first section was this dark place with lots of LED lights that reminded me of one of my favorite kapoop songs, Lucifer! I mean the Lucifer set for the music video so I kinda mind sang that song for the entire day...) for a while and explore the un-explored... Mysterious eyebrows face* Found a MIRROR maze! The temptation of posing throughout the whole maze was too hard to resist... 
Oh right and there were fake walk ways AKA glass panes, I think by the end of the maze I had a rather flat nose. Sniff*   

Below:
Heard a couple of bumping into the glass with noses and they weren't mine...
Turned around to find Fai (He looks more interested in looking at the mirror instead of the camera..)! Took another photo! Smiley face*

 Above:
My next favorite exhibit!
The run-into-a-red-wall-of-chopsticks thing!
I (Sob!*) NEVER enjoyed running into a wall quite this much before! 
(Pull the lever to run into the wall again*)


Below:
The other side! 

After a quick visit to the library we Never mind the rest was pretty much  not that fun, to me the person that enjoys mirror mazes and running into walls!

So anyways I just wanted you guys to have a peek at the first two (Uncompleted, see? No borders and the cake board is rather... White.) tiers of my entry for the cake competition.

Will post random sneak peeks till it's finished!

~K 

Sitting Trotty Day

No, it's not because I haven't ridden in a long time it's because I didn't blog about the last 2 lessons since nothing new/interesting happened, just the usual walking (6 Rounds around the "Sandy training pen" to "warm up" the horse.), rising trotting (After finishing the 6 rounds of walking.) and cantering (Towards the end of the lesson when the horse and the rider is all "warmed up" or half exhausted, it's a half empty half full cup thing I think. To me it's usually half exhausted.), also learnt how to the the collected walk but it's such a small thing so I didn't blogging about it in case you fell asleep since the rest of the lesson was about the same! 

Went for the evening riding session today.. Yay! Got to sleep at 1AM, finally! After all those sleep at 10PM days, yeesh.

Papa went off to KL with the car and Mommy's car was STILL in the work shop, so guess what? We walked in the HOTTT afternoonish sun.

Above:

Me (Without hat, I hate hats, they don't help with the sun, they just help to cook your head more, pulling a "Auntie-go-market" cart that had our bottles, sandwiches and other stuff in it.), Fai (In his brown cowboy hat.), Ean (In Han's soldier hat that was rolled up so he could see.) and Han (In his blue riding helmet!) walking to the Horsey place.

It was SO super hot this afternoon I could actually feel the tar road burning and the hot steam rising up, it felt rather saunaish, by the time we reach we were drenched in sweat already! 

 Above:

When we reached the stables we were 10-15 minutes before the lesson so we horsed around with the horses.

That's Numa (The 6-7 month old foal that was born there.) biting my orange orangutan shirt (From now on I hereby swear that I will only wear orange t-shirts for horseback riding so that I look like a walking carrot and all the horses will love me, MWAHAHA! I am such an evil genius!) and it somehow is because it reminds her (And probably the other horses as well but she's the only one that lets me touch her super FLUFFY ears, the other older horses like to head butt me when I do so, so this is my way of repaying her, by letting her bite holes in my shirt. I love animals with fluffy ears, I know it sounds weird but horses have fluffier and softer ears than dogs! Another reason to like horses if you are a fluffy ear loving person like me.) of carrot and she (Speaking about baby horses... I love their fur! It's 10 times softer and fluffier than the adult horses! I love hugging them fluffy horses but big ones are fine to, I just love hugging them big, fat, fluffy, warm animals!) loves my watch (But I find her licking and biting my watch rather disgusting since I don't actually wash my watch so there will be baby horse germs there...) too! 

Below:

She left some chewed up hay on my shirt... Yuckeo.

Doesn't it look like an upside down volcano?! (Oolala, Numa is an artist!)

Above: 

Me and Ali (And one of my brother's hands.. Most probably Fai's.).

He (Kinda got confused between Ali and King at first but you can tell them apart because Ali has a white spot on his fore head and King doesn' t and Ali's skinnier too.)looked a bit grumpy, grouchy, moody and down today so I decided to pat and hug him extra, did I mention that I LOVE hugging horses?! They are so hugable (And the smell nice and... Horseyish.)... Smiley face*   

Below:

Me doing... Doing... I am not sure what I was doing.

When the lesson started I did the usual walking and (Rising) trotting (Both collected, my fingers felt as though I was going to fall of by the end of today's riding session!) with King around the rectangular "Sandy training pen" (I don't think I consider this part a "lesson".) then I got called into the middle of the "Sandy training pen" to start on the sitting trot (Heard that this one earns a lot of points in competitions and today I just found out why... But it is still doable not impossible if I put my mind to it and I will definitely put my mind to it!)!

Which is basically... Sitting instead of rising and SO much harder!

 First of all you had to "loosen" from your waist down so you don't bounce up and down, found it pretty tough (And I am a very tense person so relaxing is... Hard.) since I still had to keep my heels down and it's not very relaxing.

To help sit on the saddle I had to kinda push my bellybutton/stomach up (And I had to keep my hands/reins down to the saddle, ugh! I hate my "bounce everywhere hands" bad habit of mine..) every time King went one step forward and that was certainly VERY tiring and not long after I had that I got the stitch (It was said that I have weak stomach muscles and I was going to feel this way until it's "built". ARGHHHH! Rolls eyes*) again, so now it was tiring (But I somehow got the "rhythm" a bit so I didn't bounce around that much and it wasn't all THAT tiring as the first few minutes, how knew keeping your butt down on the saddle was so much more tiring than going up and down?) AND painful (Speaking about painful, my entire upper body has been aching like CRAZY for the past... 2-3 Day! I find it hard to do anything when it is like so, it's almost as though as I am paralyzed but it goes away when I get up on the horse but I soon get the stitch and that's equally as painful, oh well.), GAH.   

And right after that it was time to CANTER (I actually got asked if I wanted to do so or not, I said yes because I didn't feel exhausted enough to stop! I didn't reach the almost fainting limit yet, even though learning the sitting trot drained quite a lot of energy..)! 

Now I find myself looking forward to cantering instead of keeping away from it because it's so fun and wiiinddyyyy (It's nice feeling your sweat blow away... Wheeeee!)!

Today's cantering felt so natural and relaxing but soon it did get rather tiring and I had to go from clockwise to  anti and some how my balance was all over the place and things got a wee bit scary, my fingers felt like as though they were REALLY about to drop off and the reins kinda... Slipped out out of my left hand so I decided to stop the horse and when I did I kinda... Collapsed on the back of King's sweaty furry neck from exhaustion and that's when I knew I did enough for the day.

Mmm... I love how horseback riding makes water seem so precious, it's simply heavenly having a bottle of water in your hands after getting down from your horse!

~K 

Oink

Above:

A close up picture of my first (EVER! If you must know...) gum paste pig, stuffed a half eaten (I hope you can see the eaten part...) gum paste (Remember how I said I bought 2 tubs of Satin Ice's gum paste when I was in KL? Got to use it yesterday for Mr Piggy! Dries quick, I think quicker than Wilton's and it doesn't have those hard, dried up bits like Wilton's! Satin Ice, my new favorite gum paste. It's probably going to be some time before I can afford the fondant though...) chocolate chip in his hand, I think it was a very nice touch and the bow tie! Try spotting the stitch marks... Wanted to make a blue jeans jumper for it but I think it looks better nude, with a bow tie! Hahaha!

Oink... You probably guessed what this post is about already, yep you got it.

BIRDS!

Say what?! Psshh... Are you SURE birds don't go "Oink"? 

I swear I heard a bird go "oink" yesterday...

Oh fine, you win.

Piggies go "oink"!

Like that one? Points above*

 Was pretty excited when I got an order from my Grandma (For her son's AKA my uncle's 40th birthday and he's born in the year of the pig so that's how the pig thing came around and she wanted the pig to be lazing around and holding up a sign that says "I AM 40"! Did some research on the net and browsed through my "Cartoony" cake books and this is what I came up with.) for this cake topper (Yeah, she didn't want her favorite butter cake, poo. Oh well I wouldn't have time to make it anyways, need to get to work on my competition cake! Have been delayed too much already!) since I have ALWAYS wanted to make a gum paste pig (Actually I like making any gum paste animal... Really hate those orders that I have to follow some Disney character because it limits my creativity, yuck.), probably my toothbrush holder is a pig and the rubber thing that it's made out off looks like gum paste so after staring at it twice a day... You would want to make it? Hahaha! I don't think it's a very good excuse but you'll have to deal with it!

  

Above:

Mr Piggy's picnic on a mud puddle (Yes, the cake topper is in two seprate pieces, was afraid if I put it on only one big mud puddle it would break when I transferred it onto the cake, so this was a my solution. Well, actually it was because I made the pig a little too fat and there wasn't enough space for the rest of the picnic so I had to roll out another brown piece of gum paste but I think the one up there sounds like a better explanation, doncha think so?).

Each baby blue plate is about an inch wide, so I guess you can estimate the size (Speaking about size.. Check out the silver, dusted it with silver luster dust but it doesn't show much in this photo, fork and the teaspoon which is even smaller in the photo above.) of the rest.

I didn't know making miniature food (Making the cake, I think it looks more like an orange cake than a chocolate cake like I planned..., was exceptionally fun! Playing with the runny royal icing and making the extremely tiny pink strawberries!) out of gum paste was so fun!

Let's hope I get more miniature gum paste food orders, yeah?   

The first thing that popped into my mind when my Grandma said she wanted a "lazy" pig I thought about it sitting down in a mud puddle (What's a pig without it's mud puddle? The mud puddle part probably came from this book I had, I think I still have it, about this YELLOW pig that lived in a farm with an elderly couple and it's pig sty had this nice soft mud he sleeps in and one day the farmer's wife decided to clean up his sty and sucked up all his mud so he decided to run away. So first he came across this swamp and he thought it looked soft and went it but he got attacked by the snakes and bugs who lived there so he decided to go some where else and somewhere else again, you get the point. And alas he wondered off into the city were he got stuck in the recently made tar road! So soon there was a huge crowd around the yellow pig and the poor elderly farmers that were looking everywhere for their lost pig found it and brought it back home and while he was away it rained so he had his mud puddle back! Oops... I think I got rather carried away with my story telling, so yeah, pigs must have their mud puddles!) and what's a pigs other favorite thing?

DOOOOF!

Errh... I mean.. FOOD! Yeah, food! Smiley face*

 Above:

A not so close up view of Mr Piggy in his mud puddle with his good cuppa joe, I originally planned it to look like tea and I put three REAL cubes (Or crystals.) of sugar next to the cup, tiny teaspoon (Which was very fun making!... And not so fun dusting cause it didn't feel like keeping still.), a tiny pot of sugar (Also filled with real sugar crystals.) and the "I Am 40" sign my Grandma requested for which was painted freehand with some black gel food coloring, excuse my icing sugar shaker at the back, the sign is only meant to be stuck when we reach the party, don't want anything breaking/falling down during delivery!

Below:

Basically the whole set!

Just imagine a real cake underneath it not a piece of square styrofoam.  

Hope you enjoyed viewing lazy Mr Piggy as much as I (REALLY) enjoyed making him and his picnic!

May a pile of cupcakes fall on you right now,

Karen Cuppy Cake

Canter

Sorry about my no-posting-for-three-days, was in KL.. Signing up for this year's ICCA Wedding cake competition (Woo hoo! Imma sooo eggsaiteddybear!... And nervous. And maybe the "Teen category" as well, oh well I still have a month until the dead line!), buying a truck load of fondant, Yeesh, ICCA ran out of gum paste (How is this possible?!) so I had to go over to City Baker's to get gum paste and they too didn't have Wilton gum paste, just Satin Ice and it was CHEAPER than Wilton's?! All this while I have been buying Wilton's.. Felt rather silly at that moment. Anyways bought 2 tubs of 1KG Satin Ice gum paste to try out, hope it work (Fingers crossed!), went shopping @ Ikea (Yay! I finally have a soft squishy PINK carpet in my room! I have a sudden pink obsession, I am not exactly sure why... So now my whole room's gonna be pink! Woo hoo? Smiley face*), haven't been there in AGES! Mmm... How much I have missed that "Ikea smell"... and of course there was me broken Korean singing and dancing (The song of the day was SHINee's Replay I think..) when ever I could (It's kinda like my own way to entertain myself when I am away from my laptop.) in Ikea (Yeah, got a bit more than the usual amount of stares, I wonder what I look like in someone else's eyes..?) and once in the lift when Mommy asked me to press the "G" button in the lift and I couldn't help but sing and dance Girl Generation's Gee all the way to the taxi, yeah, that's basically what we (I mean I.) did in KL.

Right.

Woke up (I mean "Got woken up") at 730AM, felt eggstreamilee sleepy since I stayed up finishing a new novel I borrowed from the library (Adds PJ library to the "What I did in KL" list.).
Had the usual bread plus some random edible spread (Today's was peanut butter if you must know.) I find for breakfast.

Blah blah blah.
King again.
Walk, trot, walk, trot.
You get the point.

Towards the end of my riding hour (Would you prefer me calling it the witching hour? Grin*) I was put back on the lunge (It's a fancy name for the leash they put the horse on to learn a new "move".) to learn how to CANTER!

It started off with a rising trot which then started to go EGGSTREAMILEE fast (But it felt EGGSTREAMILEE fun!) then King suddenly leaped a bit then it went CRAZZZEEEEE!

This explains how I felt at that exact moment: I felt as though as the horse was doing this pouncing running thing which was crazily fast (You feel this sudden rush of adrenaline pass through your whole body, the same feeling you get when you go down the "drop" of the roller coaster! Only this time you have reins not seat belts...) , I was losing my grip on the stir-ups (The metal stuff you put your feet in.) and my heels didn't feel like pressing down much, I was also losing my grip on the reins which was VERY scary since that was the only thing keeping me onto the horse, you have that exact same feeling you get when you go on a speed boat when the sea is super rough (I don't exactly enjoy "Sea transport" much since I get sea sick and after a while I actually started to get a bit "Horse sick" like the first time I tried the rising trot!) and there's lots of wind blowing in your hair, your heart feels kinda week, your tummy doesn't agree and it makes you horse sick, your mouth can't help but go "AHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHH AHHHHHHH!!" (I got yelled at to stop screaming and start doing that "Hip stomach" thing (To keep your butt onto the saddle, who knew it was so hard?) and follow the "Rhythm" of the horse which I found difficult like the first time I started with the rising trot, it was like starting horseback riding ALL over again) and... In other words my first round was... Scary?
Oh may I add that by the end of the lesson I ALMOST fell off King like 4-6 times! Blah.

I am not sure if I got better during the next few rounds but at least I got to feel what it was like to get the "Rhythm" for about 10 seconds before my stomach and hips got tired (It was my thighs when I first started the rising trot. The tiring level is about the same I suppose...)  and then I started my screaming (It's automatic since it felt roller coaster-ish.) and bouncing around the saddle again!
When the horse slowed down to a trot it felt heavenly!
I never knew I would be so happy trotting!

By the end of my lesson (I am not sure how long it was..) I was drop DEAD zombie tired, haven't sweated this much since... My first riding lesson!

Felt rather weak and my stomach still felt squeezy ( Never drink water before cantering unless of course... If you want to experience horse sickness.), at that time I wasn't sure if I was looking forward to my next lesson or not since there wouldn't be any walking or trotting.. Just cantering. Gulp* (And after cantering is... Galloping? And that's even faster than a canter, yikes.)
But there isn't any point stopping NOW right?!

Mommy's car was STILL in the workshop and Papa took his car to work so... We walked home.
Got to pick some rambutans (It isn't a proper word? I guessed that. So I clicked on it and what was the suggestion? Rambunctiousness... I wonder what THAT means but I am pretty sure it meant rambutan delicious.) from soooomeoones tree, too bad there we only two ripe ones in reach so I got to eat half of my rambutan and give the other half to Ean and Fai got one whole one, sob.

I am pretty sure I was walking at snail's pace or maybe slower... I think I saw a garden snail pass me when I was walking up that little slope...

Stopped by "Kak Yah", a little Malay makan shack for brunch.
The rice for my usual "Nasi goreng kampung without chili" wasn't cooked yet so I decided to have "Maggi goreng" and it turn out...
With a bit of soup + sugar, noodles, topped with PEANUTS (And squid, a prawn, some bits of chicken and vegetables)!    
It was the WEIRDEST "Maggi Goreng" I EVER had!
Who puts PEANUTS (They were fried in some batter I think...) in "Maggi Goreng"?!

Am now at home and feeling EGGSTREAMILEE lazy. Yawn*

~K

Its raining horses!

We were supposed to go riding yesterday but it started raining humongous horses at dawn, ugh! 

We couldn't ride even after it stopped because then the "Sandy training pen" would be muddy and it causes the horse to stumble and then you get thrown off the horse, not exactly my idea of fun.

Woke up at 8AM or something like that this morning (Panicked a bit because I saw the sunshine peaking through my curtains!) and wondered why Mommy didn't come storming into my room and waking me up. 

For a second I actually thought of getting out of bed and waking everyone up but then well... You could say I was rather lazy then I drifted off to sleep again, 5 minutes later...

KNOCK KNOCK! Wake UP! Do you realize what time it is?! 

It was my Dad not my Mom.. Strange. 

Stuck a fat PoohBear plaster on my blister like wound (I don't think it was really needed since the would looked rather dried up already but.. Oh well!), pulled on my "riding" jeans, grabbed a peanut buttered slice of bread and pulled on my shoes at the same time (It was pretty tough, lemme tell you that.) and off we went!

Got dropped off @ the stables with Fai, our horses (King and Ali, I got King, Fai got Ali.) were already all saddled up so we could get on top and ride right away, woo hoo!

I have to admit while walking in I felt a wee bit nervous since I haven't been riding in three days (It's considered a long time when you used to riding every day!)!

Did I mention how much I love getting on top on the horse and down? It just gives you this awesome feeling that you were able to get up on an animal taller than you and the feeling when you let go off the saddle and drop, it just makes your heart stop for a moment. It's that exact same feeling when you reach "drop" of the roller coaster track! 

It felt so good to have my helmet (Even though I am not much of a helmet person.), riding gloves and that little stick on and with me again. It just makes you feel "professional" I suppose... And it is a nice feeling, right?

Today I had to "warm" up King by walking him walk clockwise trice around the "Sandy training pen" then anti before starting with the trot so that way both the rider and the horse would be warmed up!

And I kept getting shouted "Back straight and relax!", how on earth can you have a straight, relaxed back?! Blinks*

Casey's (Another horse which I rode on only once.) "Grassy graing pen" was next to the "Sandy training pen" so he kinda charged toward me and king when ever we passed and tried to nip at us!

It felt pretty scary!

Not long after I started trotting the sky started to "gloom" up and not long after tiny rain drops fell on my helmet, pitter patter pitter... 

Actually trotted like 3 full rounds around the "Sandy training pen"! 

My secret?

The wind was howling in my ears and the faint raindrops = BLISS.

It felt goooooooooood! t

But soon it the faint raindrop became big huge Buffalo ones and I had to get off King!

Fai got down like five minutes earlier and was sobing because he had a blister on one of his fingers from the reins! 

I am glad I got my gloves before it started (My ring fingers were already getting redish and painfullish, ouchy.)  to "blister up"!

We sat down next to the empty horse stable drinking our water, watching the rather wet horses that were in the "Grassy grazing pens" run (With the stable boy or something like that of course.) to their stable (Watching the ponies run were exceptionally funny since they have such short, fat bodies and a huge head...), the wet muddy dogs coming to us for attention and getting us all muddy and of course there was the grumpy fly/Fai..

Auntie Zarina (She owns the horsey place.) asked Fai if he want a plaster for his blister, he doesn't exactly like plasters so he shook his head and started crying all over again.

Then she asked Fai if he wanted a red bandage, the ones they use for the HORSES!

He was rather reluctant at first but as soon as I said "I want to see itttt!", he wanted it.

So I had a red bandage on my in very good conditioned hand and Fai had it too on his not in very good conditioned hand!

I like the fact that its made out of this rubbery, stretchy, holey moley red thing, you can take it out and put it back on and it's for HORSES! Who cool is THAT?!

Okay that's about it for today! 

~K

P.S

Dear Zeus,

Make the sky rain (Lightning the sky up to your hearts content too.) as much as you want on Monday (It's horse resting day, remember?) but I want CLEAR blue skies on Tuesday!

Or at least the whole of Tuesday mornin', ya hear me?!   

P.P.S

Did my usual kapooping right after I had my shower and... I found a new favorite song!

I have no idea why but this cheesy song makes me smilee!

I guess it's that weird aunto-tuning they used to make their voices so funny!

   

Happiness

Just a random post since I haven't posted anything today (It's alright to ignore this random post if you to since I will be going horseback riding tomorrow so stay tuned for it okay? Will try making something interesting happen when I am riding.. Like perhaps.. Fall off the horse? Hahaha! Poo, Mommy just told me that it was going to be postponed to Saturday, sob.), am busy working with CAAAKKEE (Man. I had absolutely no idea that I missed caking so much! Started 2 days ago was super lazy! My excuse for being lazy: Kapoop, you know what that means right?), for the first time very in my very dusty and cluttered (Okay.. I think I kinda regret saying that but.. Ehh.. Never mind! Just pretend you didn't see that okay?) cakery, don't worry no one's going to eat it unless that person likes fondant and RI on Styrofoam, that is...

Anyways, lets start my little name it (I wonder how THAT name popped up, oh well..!) game!

Today (As in what makes me happy today, DUH? It's 1.15AM the next day now, does it still count? Oh well let's put it this way... The day before today, today and the actual today, happy?!) happynurse is:

1. Papa passing me a aluminium can tab he found when he was out, it's so nice when "people" remember your little projects. I think I mentioned in one of my posts that I was collecting bread chip and can tabs to make a chandelier, right? 
2. Chatting on Facebook and seeing one of your friends (Fine, I'll admit it, BLOOREGARD!) use one of the words you (I mean, I made up but it sounds a little awkward don't you think?) made up, an eggzamplah (I like the word "Blah" so I use it a lot at the end of my words.): My "Eggzaclee" (Can't decode it? It means "Exactly" in KCC language, invented it some time back..) is one of the ever popular ones and it is even better when they try to make up their own words with the (Awesome.) KCC language, usually it's all the "Eggs" or "Ex" words that you can think off.
3. Listening to some kapoop (Oh I just realized! ANOTHER made up word! Let's see how many there are in this post.. Come on kids count with me! Use some Sesame street monster's voice* Preferably Elmo* Or Big bird* Or.. You get it!)... Every time you catch the laptop free. Let's see, Mommy enjoys hogging my but I think it is more of an our but it's SUPPOSED to be mine but never mind... laptop to do her blogging and she takes an eggstreemilliepead (Hah! How many made up words so far? I think I should make a whole post out of made up words once you followers get used to it!) doing so, yeesh. Wait I think I take longer, oh well! And listening to it after horseback riding is even more heavenly, ahh... I think I should stop now, since people get bored out of their minds once I start kapooping, right?
4. Holding a #1L piping bag filled with morbid BLACK RI and having a whole white cake for you to pipe on... And letting your imagination do the rest of the work (When I do that it somehow always turned into this henna, lace like thing, yeesh.. But it is VERY beautiful, sometimes I wish my imagination could do something else though...) while you sing your (I mean mine but it always sounds better when I say you/your instead of I, I have no idea why..) favorite kapoop songs in broken Korean and skipping a couple of parts (What do you call them again? Bridges, verses and the chorus right?) to get to your favorite part of the song when you are getting to the fine piping details so you won't feel so nervous and jumpy and when you get over jumpy you start broken dancing (I am horrible at singing, lets just say I have a horrible voice and dancing so I always do it when no ones around me, I don't eggzaclee count my cakes as people..) and singing around your cake room and getting back to work once all the jumpiness has gone.. Then finding out your cake room isn't sound proof, nice.     
5. Seeing that the blogs you followed (Preferably the non-cake ones but a CakeWreck a day never fails to make me laugh!) posted LOADS today or seeing a comment (That's eggstreemilliepead rare though...) or two (Doubt it!) or maybe just plain 50+ views on my blog per day, I just feel really happy when I know people actually listen to what I say, unlike reality. Or maybe just some "fresh" newspapers Papa brought back home, I have no idea why.. But I do enjoy seeing "new" reading material, even though it's just a newspaper.
6. Watching Avengers (I have always enjoyed watching "Super hero", okay fine, Marvel cartoons..) with your (Oh no! Not that "your" thing again..) brother and fighting over the couch with the seat that is right in front of the tellie and then you end up sitting on each other like a hamburger cause no one feels like giving way!
7. Starring randomly at something and then realizing that "Won't that be awesome if I used THAT design and put it there? On that tier of the cake?", then feeling extremely proud of yourself for finding a random inspiration! 

Okayt here I am ending this random post cause it's 1.50AM, we just got back from watching Transformers3 (I think I preferred the first two better, what do you think?) in Seremban!  

~K

Who knew?

I would fall in love with horseback riding..
4 "lessons" ago I thought I would just give it a shot and try it out for "fun", Fai was supposed to be the one that was really "serious" but I think I am more in to it now compared to him, which is pretty strange because just about a week ago I knew nothing about it and of course didn't know it was going to be so fun and enjoyable.

I love horseback riding because.. Well.. I don't have to warm up (I hate doing push-ups and chin-ups and.. I think you get it.), you jump on the horse and start RIDING or do splits and its's fun, you get to go at your own pace (You can always slow down the horse but who would want to do that when it is SO much fun trotting?), you get to wear "fancy" clothes (Mmm... Love them boots, gloves and riding choppers jodhpurs! But i don't exactly enjoy wearing a helmet...)  and you get to be around these lovely creatures called, horses!

Reached the stables at 740Am or so..
I went on King (Again! But they did mention that I could ride any one of their horses after today's lesson! Can't wait for that!) and the boys shared Ali, another dark down horse.

I had a bit of trouble during the first 20-30 minutes or so because King just wouldn't obey my instructions or my pulling of reins, which ever you prefer and would stop and NOT trot, maybe he did but only for 10 seconds... Then started walking again, yeesh.
Then I was told I was being bullied by King!
So I had to shorten the reins even more, by about 6 inches (On the first or second lesson when I was riding I was hold the reins like... 20 inches from where I was holding them today! No wonder it didn't listen to me at ALL on the first or second lesson...
I guess it felt better once I had shorten it and I was given a little stick like thing to tap the back a bit (Not whack!) when he wasn't listening!
Tried the stick once when he was slowing down while trotting to see what it does... He suddenly went super speedy/hyper and nearly knocked me off! Never underestimate the power of thy little stick!

My rising trot was also corrected to make me balance better.
It was a strange way to correct the rising "rhythm", you correct it by sitting down while the horse is trotting and bounce twice then get up again and do the rising trot, strange?
If you are going clockwise you are supposed to to "rise" when the horse's right front foot goes in front, then sit when it goes down and the other way round if you are doing it anti clockwise.
Got shouted "Diagonal!" (Am not sure why it's call that.) a lot today, hahaha! But the feeling when you get it right is awesome and you would have to maintain that "rightness" once you get it which was quite tricky at first  but you would soon get it!

And I was also told to "Not push myself too hard", which was strange to hear because... I always do.
What's the point of doing something you love and not doing your best at it?
I am not someone who likes looking back and regretting on why I didn't try harder when I could.

Also discovered that the quicker you "rise" the quicker the horse will trot!

Spent 2 hours on King instead of the usual one hour and I somehow didn't exact feel tired once I got down!
I never knew I could ride for such a long time, comparing myself to the first lesson..

Am feeling hungry! Goodbye! Next Rapidash/Horsea/Ponyta post-Friday, tomorrow's my (And my jean's! Today discovered, after riding that if I used my calves to grip the horse, which felt much better than using my knees, my jeans start to... RIP! Better get those jodhpurs soon before all my jeans get ripped, eh Mommy?) rest day!
 
~K

Horsying around

Mmm... Another lesson came and.. Gone.

Got woken up at 630AM, oh mai ughness.

It was still pretty dark when I was dragging my self out of bed (Which made me want to go back into soft, comfy, warm bed and not go down to to morning chilliness..) but it soon brightened up..

Fai was pretty grumpy this morning (Maybe because our usual "Horseback-riding-waking-up-time" is at 8AM, earliest.) and he didn't feel like having breakfast, I wonder how he survived (Saw him sneak a piece of gum into his mouth before leaving the house, so that's his secret! Hmm... I wonder where he disposed of it.) his "training"... 

Mommy drove, so super glad I ain't cycling..!

When we reached all the horses were out in the grassy "Horse grazing pens"? nibbling at the grass, me and Fai went around hugging those that were close to the "Ropey fences".

I love hugging horses.. They are so warm, big, fluffy manned and of course they have nice fur, even though its short, I personally like long fur more and they have THAT smell... A horse smell, like dogs have a doggy smell, horses have horsey smell! And it somehow smells quite good too...

Fai went up on King (Again..) first today, Han was still at home, snoring. 

Up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down he went, he is doing the rising trot as well, he is rather good at it despite his short legs on humongous king... 

After an hour of being slobbered and being "mudded" by Bob and Marley, it was MY turn! Hahaha!

Oh no.. The rising trot again, pfft.

Uppa, downa, Uppa, Downa.. (It got sunny after a while and the only thing I wanted at that moment was proper sunglasses not my "half way, neither long or short" fringe that were going into my eyes! Who knew hair could be this disturbing? Didn't eat any apples before riding today, RESULT! No stitch! Or getting horse sick! Smiley face* But there was this "Skin scraped off due to gripping to hard to the saddle bruise on my err... Beside my knee." and that plus the hair was as annoying as the stitch, yeesh. Okay so for the next riding lesson, tomorrow: No apples, Use calves instead of knees to grip and probably clip my fringe up. I am a very hoping I wouldn't have to add anymore to THAT list!)  

While trotting today I was asked to "release" the short rope that was attached to the saddle and just use the reins, which made me wobble (And I held the reins a bit too high up because I felt more comfortable but that soon got corrected..) a bit but it felt so much better once I had gotten used to it! 

It was as though I had a better "connection" with the horse, I felt Neytiri riding that Avatarish horse (Now I just need to grow my hair like REEAAALLLYY long and put it into a plait and do that "connection" thing..! And maybe paint myself blue...), super cool!

Spent the next 30 minutes pretending to be well... Historical people that rode horses. Smiley face* 

Then... THEN... I was released from the trainer's leash! 

Did I forget to tell you? I was kept on a leash (Which was pretty long but it is a whole new thing when you are by YOURSELF!) for the first 3 lessons and part of the fourth...

But now I am free to kill and terrorize as I please, MWAHAHAHAHA! 

And that feeling when you trot extremely fast (Thy helpless people were telling me to slow down, hahaha! Too bad! Am not on a leash anymore!) and you are the one in control of where you want to go in the "Sandy horse training pen", awesome.

Best lesson so far!

~K

How to: Extremely FUN Spinach Noodles

Spinach noodles.. I can see the face you have on right now! Who ever eats GREEN noodles? Well, I do and they are surprisingly yummy after you get pass the fact that they are green and spinach is one of my favoritest vegetables so I like the light spinachy taste they have.

Oh and you are probably wondering about the "Extremely Fun" part in this post's title... Well we are getting to the fun part!

Just for your information, it doesn't have to be spinach. It can be basically any vegetable that can be pureed (Carrot sounds nice and it won't seem too gross...) actually, so I guess it will be fun experimenting, huh? Oh! And it's "Health freak" and kid (My three brothers helped me and my Mom out today, should I count myself in the "kid" part?) friendly! Smiley face*

First tried them out in a restaurant at Jaya One quite some time back and found them REALLY nice so we decided to go hunting for a recipe and trying it out, it's our first time making this at home and... I just bought a new PASTA MACHINE (It's actually for rolling out gum paste but well... i guess I am just testing my new toy/machine out today!)!

Okay! Let's get started with our super simple spinach noodles!

You will need:

2 1/2 Cups of Spinach leaves without the main stem but the tiny ones attached to the leaves are fine, compact the leaves into the cup, please.

4 Tablespoons of water

1 Teaspoon of Salt

2 1/2 Cups of All purpose flour

Pasta machine or rolling pin.

Yep! No fancy ingredients (Unless you count spinach fancy in which ever strange country you are from.)! Nice, huh?

Oh right, and before you start on the noodle making.. You might need to make the really simple but yummy Mommy's soup.

Ingredients:

A pot filled with water
A few chunks of whatever fish
A few chucks of ginger
Some salt
Freshly ground pepper

Mommy's method:

Chuck everything into the pot and boil.

Okay! There you go! Your soup!

This recipe fed:

1 Obaachan
1 Okasan
1 Otosan
1 Musume
3 Pesky little brothers, I have no idea how to say that in Japanese, yet.

Step 1:


Rip your leaves up a bit, make sure you use your baby brother to do this (Don't have one? Feel free to borrow mine.), it will make things much easier and you won't have to get your hands leafy, unless you enjoy it that is, then go ahead.


Combine the leaves and that four tablespoons of water you have into a sauce pan.
Put it on a medium-slow fire, cook till tender. It would be good if you could put the lid on so it would speed this process up.


Turn off the fire and cool once it is done.

Step 2:


Place your eggs (Oops! One of the yolks got cut by the sliiiccceerrrr! Say with weird evil voice*), salt and spinach into a blender or food processor.

Blend on low speed till it looks as disgusting as this. 

Step 3:

In a mixing bowl, poof your flour into it, make sure you drop it from the ceiling to make an AWESOME cloud of flour. Which will choke you and make you die but.. it was fun right?

Step 4:


Pour the spinach mush into your pristine white floury mixing bowl and... Stick your hand (Putcha right hand in, putcha right hand out! Putcha right hand in and please don't shake it all about! Do the hokey pokey and please do turn your self around.. THAT'S what it's all about!) in and KNEAD! 

Till it looks like this (Add more flour if it's too mushy but I don't think it would be.) then plonk it out onto a lightly dusted table and knead it for about 10 minutes or so..

Step 5:


Get a quarter or so of the dough blob and try flattening it as much as possible and flouring it heavily (You don't want it to end up sticking onto the pasta machine when you roll, do you?) on both sides before rolling it out in the pasta machine.  

Flour the table quite a bit too, to prevent it from sticking or you will have a hard time!
Let the rolled out dough rest for 20 minutes before "Shredding" (Make sure you dust them with yet another layer of flour, it somehow cuts better so you don't get sticky together noodles, I am pretty sure you won't want to eat those..) them into noodles. 

Step 6:


Once you have "Noodle-y-fied" the dough it's time... 
For the "Extremely fun" part! Yippeeee!
(I was supposed to drape them on a rack but it was rather sticky so I did this instead and it worked, WOO HOO!)


Now, to prevent it from clumping together, dust your table yet again then call all your little brothers over then start tossing them into the air! Do this to your heart's content, don't worry the noodles won't protest.
You should end up with noodles all over your table and flour and tiny strands of noodles on the floor. Another smiley* 
I assume this process makes the noodles springy? 


Let noodles rest for another TWO hours before cooking.

Step 7:


Re-heat your soup if it is cold, put some water into a wok and wait for it to boil before putting your noodles in for half a minute, take it out and rinse under cold water, then plop it into your bowl.


Pour the soup in and garnish with anchovies (Make sure you deep fry them first, ya?) and some weird edible leaves (Boil them a bit first.).

YUMMY! Had one of the best lunches EVER! Huge grin*

~K

Riding lesson 3

Eh, let's see..
Another early horsey morning, I find it a bit ugh-ish somehow, like I usually do when I have to wake up anytime before 10AM but 4AM is fine, maybe cause I didn't actually fall asleep that much, dragging my self out of bed at 8AM for two days in a row isn't very easy, I wonder how school going kids do it everyday. (Woo hoo! Did you stop to count the amount of comas in that sentence? I wonder if you are allowed to use that many..)

Grabbed a slice of bread+butter before hitting the road with my bicycle (Today's our first time trying to cycle to the "Horse ranch", not something I would be recommending anyone else to do unless you enjoy something called "Self torture".) that had Han on the back very-uncomfortable-metal-seat and Papa and Fai behind on Papa's silver bicycle.

It was storming during dawn so the morning air was pretty (Sniff*) cold!

My petite instructor was no where in sight today, sob. I learnt quite a lot from him yesterday, so his disappearance was quite disappointing.
Rode King (He was just getting "dressed' when we got there so I ate a few slices of apples that were from Mommy's picnic bag again while waiting..) again today, after Han AND Fai. I was quite restless and fidgety by the time Fai was done, was the first one up on the horse for the first two days so waiting was.. Strange? Oh well at least I had Bob and Marley, 2 of the "friendlier" ("Branded" but I am not exactly sure what breed they are because I have never actually seen this particular breed so I can't really recall and remember but they don't look "Branded" at ALL. I think they were some sort of Labrador.. They had really fluffy ears though! Dogs with fluffy ears are always nicer then stand uppy not much fluff ones, right?) dogs (More like puppies actually, they are just a few months old.) they had at the ranch, to play with!

Once I got onto King it was just the "Rising trot" for the next whole hour!
I was able to do it pretty easily I suppose, up, down, up, down, up, down, yeah, you get the point and absolutely no bouncing around in the seat! 
Two lessons ago or basically my first lesson it was "When would this horse ssstttttooooooppp bouncing me around?! Bounces around the saddle, up down, bounce around, up, bounce around some more, up, down, up, down, bounce around and lose balance and pulls reins* Screams mentally*", today it was "Lalalalalalala.. Up, down, up down, up, down* How many rounds have we been going around already? Am getting booorreeeeddd...". Grin*
The breeze while I was riding today was.. Pure awesomeness. Felt like a princess today.
I think I would request to learn a different "trot" the next time round, on Tuesday, Monday's are the horsies rest day.

The last few rounds were slightly painful though, had a rather bad side stitch, must have been those apples, shouldn't have eaten them. Oh well, I think it will just be a slice of bread next time. Also, I forgot to add in that in the last/second lesson I felt "Horse sick" (It's like getting car sick I suppose, you feel puke-ish.) at the end, I blame the apples again! No more apples for me before riding!

As usual (Hah! I made it sound as though I have been riding for agggeeeeessssss! Right, right, right?!) I was drenched in sweat by the time my hour was up and of course I had the "Woo hoo! Another lesson completed!" feeling which makes you feel rather proud of yourself!

Cycling back home was... TORTURE! I couldn't even get on top of my bicycle properly, horseback riding does some weird thing to my legs which makes it slightly disabled. 3 small hills (Doesn't seem all that small when you start cycling up it, trust me.) and the hot Malaysian after noon sun don't go to well in my option and of course if you are already tired and you barely have enough energy to take off your riding helmet, my hands were shaking a bit, I don't really know why... Err, you get the point.

Am currently rewarding myself with oodles of SHINee and a bit of GG I suppose... It's funny how I can never keep that, points at the SHINee and GG* out of my current posts!

~카렌

Horsies

Okay! Finally I have my lap top back, so where do I start?

I guess I might as well get right to the point instead of talking in circles (*Note. I didn't know I would actually talk out of the subject again but I just did and a very long one in fact, pardon me. And stuff that don't exactly relate to the post, like SHINee! I tried breaking my SHINee addiction about 2 days ago when I found out Swathy, my fellow Shawol that got the SHINee disease from Machika (She tried making us listen to other kapoops, KCC language for K-pop but was pretty unsuccessful you could say.) won't be able to come with me for their concert in September and I might not go to anyways since it might clash with a few things so I told myself and an upset Swathy that eh, they are just 5 silly Korean guys that sing (Awesome), dance (Awesome) and rap (Awesome. I can't take western rap, it drives me insanely mad but I for some reason LOVE it when it's Korean..). I wonder if she bought it or she saw the awesomes in it too, hahaha! The day after that we met up with Machika for the last time in the KLIA airport, sob, her year in Malaysia is up! *Points up, that's us (Check out the badges!) the Japanese girl and the "I-Wish-I-Was-Korean-SO-Bad-That-I-Actually-Took-A-Korean-Airline-Home-And-Actually-Got-To-Stop-In-A-Korean-Airport-For-2-Hours-Girl", Hah! Bet you will never guess who's who, in in the airport. Wore the rainbow plastic bracelets I bought in KLCC with her, My "I scream for ice cream" shirt which I also bought in KLCC with her and my favoritest hair band EVER, I think I just like white hair bands on my black hair so I get that monochrome effect which I bought in Central with her! The first thing my Mom told Machika was: Points at me while I was eating my filet-o-fishywishy @ KLIA Mcd* She has been ADDICTED to K-pop ever since you left, what have you done to her?! She has her headphones on for almost the whole day! (I swear my Mom started on this horseback riding thing to drag me (And.. She succeeded! She knows all me weak spots too well, sob. I almost forgot this post was about horseback riding not SHINee, oops!) away from my precious (Say it like the way Golum says it with his pweaciouss ring!) SHINee!) Machika had this REALLY surprised look on her face and she said: REALLY?! I didn't know you would actually like it.. And show me your nails! (She probably saw that photo being posted on my FB. My SHINee inspired nails, they are painted freehand in case any artsy people come across this post, including the tiny heart on my pinky which was pretty darn hard to paint! Ignore the names on my fingers, I just had to put them in because.. 5 fingers for 5 members! My index finger and pinky are "different/unique" from the rest because well.. Those are my two favorites and I shan't explain what the smiley stands for!) Remember how I was talking and laughing my head off every time Machika (Most of the time it was Swathy though, she got addicted first. WAAAAY before me, actually I really have no idea how I developed a SHINee obsession, seriously.) played it on her iPod about how reee-donkey-lous (Learnt that from Puss in Boots in Shrek 3 and it won't be leaving my vocabulary anytime soon I think.) the "Ring Ding Dong" (Swathy's favorite song THEN, she had to listen to it like.. Every hour I think.) dance was and I had no idea I had a "Fan girl" in me, it's scary, so I guess I don't blame Machika for being super shocked because I think I kinda shocked myself too! Started talking and TALKING about K-pop, Machika is huge fan of DBSK and GG AKA Girl's Generation, I don't mind My destiny-DBSK, it's more of a childhood song, I was randomly clicking on Korean music videos and discovered this! I somehow heard it from.. Somewhere in Singapore, it's nice listening to it again, brings back all my Singapore memories and GG's Gee, Oh and Run devil run but too bad for them cause SHINee's (For the record, SHINee's the only artist, of ALL time that has actually got me to like all their songs.) awesomer. Barrier Broken. Okay! Imma going to that concert no matter what! Alone or with company! Dead or alive! I advise you not to go near Machika, she has this K-pop hypnotizing thing that turns you Kapoop crazed.) like I usually do when I blog, hahaha!

Okay! So... (I can't believe I actually have to type THAT, points up* much to get to the point!) Let's get this diagonal, err.. I mean STRAIGHT! I am taking HORSEBACK riding lessons. Big huge smiley face*

We (Me and Eu Fai, I think Han somewhat joined too but he is too young to ACTUALLY start.) started on our first lesson yesterday at 5PM, we were supposed to start two days before (We were all dressed up in our jeans/track bottoms and shoes already when we got the call saying it was to be postponed!) but it was raining Nile hippopotamuses and African elephants from dawn till midday! I slept till midday that day, bliiiissssss..  So I suppose horses can't be ridden on wet sand?

I think about 4-5 days ago we dropped by at the stables to inquire about the lessons, that's when I started to fall in love with horses, before this I didn't really understand why people liked it SO much! I used to find these pink, glittery "Horsey" books for 7-10 year old-ish girls in the children's section of the library (When I was younger.) and used to think why they liked them SO much, I think I know now. Grin* I think I basically like any animal you consider "Big", gentle (Wait. I think I like wild ones as well.) and intelligent as well I suppose, for a reason I am not sure of..

Our first lesson yesterday was basically getting used to being horse (It was pretty awkward.. You had to push your heels down, I found this quite difficult on the stir-ups, still find it quite difficult today but it's getting better! Your ankle, back and ears that to be in a straight line, I found keep all this in position was tough when the horse (I rode King, a big, actually the biggest horse they have there, dark brown ex-race horse yesterday and Casey, a "fine tuned" and smarter horse today.) started trotting and you have to keep your back straight but relaxed?, use your knees to "hug" (Hug or fall off the horse!) the horse, not so easy if you get a BIG horse, controlling (Tug reins left, it turns left. Tug reins right, it turns right. Tug both, it stops. If my 5 year old brother can do it, you can too.), leisurely walking around, it's quite a nice feeling as though as you are a queen riding around your palace grounds and learning how to do the "Rising trot".

What a "Rising trot" means to me: The horse starts going faster then it's usual leisure graze/walk thing and it starts getting bumpy, I mean VERY jumpy and bumpy that you may be bumped off the horse if your knees aren't forcing themselves to hold on! (Did sitting trots with Casey today, felt as though I was holding on "El toro", not a tamed horse. Might need to have more "Knee muscles" to do the sitting trot! Is there such a thing as "Knee muscles" in the first place?) On the first try I did wish for some straps tying me down to the horse and if that wasn't possible a less slippery leather saddle would be all I would ask for! So... You are supposed to... Hold the reins taut, heels down, and stand up up when the horse's left foot goes in front (A bit hard to see when it's trotting, so you might just have to estimate a bit but you will geddit after a while.).. Then sit down once the left foot goes back, it's basically doing some form of push-ups with your legs. Repeat until you get tired or if you feel as though as your will be knocked off any soon then pull on the reins to stop the trotting machine!

What Wikipedia says it is: "The rider makes an up and down movement each stride, rising out of the saddle for one beat, and lowers (sits) for the second beat. When the rising trot is performed correctly, it is comfortable for the rider and easy on the horse. This is preferred for show jumping, hunt seat, eventing (the jumping phases),saddle seat, lower-level dressage, and most other English-type riding as well as endurance riding. Although this does not provide as much control as sitting, it frees the horse's back. In the rising trot, the rider allows the horse's movement to throw his or her seat a bit out of the saddle. When coming back down, the seat touches down lightly rather than slamming down on the horse's back. Except in saddle seat riding, rider's shoulders maintain a slight forward incline throughout the rising trot, instead of the upright, vertical position seen in sitting trot. The shoulders and lower legs remain in relatively the same position when the rider is both rising and sitting and the hands also stay in the same position as the rider rises and sits."

Getting the "rhythm" of the "Rising trot" was pretty difficult on the first day and if I did I could only do it for a few times before I lost it again then I would be bouncing about on the saddle, hahaha! I must have been amusing to watch...

Karen! Heels down! Back straight! Hold the reins tauter!

By the end of the day I think I SERIOUSLY salute those people or knights that can ride and fight on top of it, scary!
And of course.. VERY tired! My shirt was soaked, my hair didn't agree very much helmet and got super messy and even insides of jeans were soaked and I officially walked a little funny (Don't ask me how I walked, Stu' funny!)!
I wonder who does more work, the rider or the horse.

Lesson 2:

Mommy woke me up at 8AM, we were supposed to be THERE at 8AM!
Ugh.. So groggy and ouch.. My thighs! I hate the fact that I have to use my knees/thighs to grip on the horse, it's super tiring!

Pulled on my smelly jeans and hurried down to have a bit of breakfast and then off we went!
On the way to the stables I was wondering how I would ride the horse, being half asleep or half dead.

When we reached, I was greeted by a new instructor, a small, petite, old-ish Malay man.

While Casey was getting "dressed" we went to have a look at King who was getting his horseshoes fixed because they made his legs cross or something.. And eating some apples and bananas Mommy packed in her picnic bag, no, it wasn't a basket. Big mistake.

Today I finally was able to keep my heels down while doing the rising and sitting trot! I finally knew the trick after watching the instructor ride Casey! Yaaaay! Lets hope I am able to do it again tomorrow!
And... I think I am able to do the rising trot (On the first day hearing: Are you ready for trotting?! Was quite scary after walking around with the horse a bit but today.. I felt pretty excited!) quite well too! No more bouncing!
And I was taught the working trot, I learnt the "normal" trot yesterday and did some sitting trots as well...
The working trot feels more comfortable to me, somehow!

Still can't take the fact that I havta kick the horse to make it move...
 
What sitting trot means to me: Keeping yourself on the horse without bouncing around the saddle and maintaining your back straight, heels down.

What Wikipedia says it is: The rider's seat remains in the saddle the whole time, following the motion of the horse, without bouncing. This is preferred for show ring western riding and indressage, especially at the upper levels. Sitting the trot gives the rider optimum control because he or she can use the seat and weight to influence the horse, asking for upward or downward transitions, turns, and to decrease or increase impulsion. It is also a test of equitation, proving that the rider can quietly move with the horse. The jog, which is the preferred gait of western horses, is generally smoother and less-bouncy than the working and extended trot of the English-style horse. Sitting can be very tiring for the rider, especially if performed by riders who have not built up their stomach and back muscles, or if riders are on an extremely powerful mount with a big trot. To sit the trot, there is a slight forward and back movement of the lower back and stomach as the rider's hips follow both the up and down and side-to-side motion of the horse. To absorb the impact of the trot, the rider relaxes through the hips, the stomach and lower back, as well as the legs. The rider's upper body remains upright and quiet. The rider's hands remain steady. The lower legs remain relaxed and only come into play when the rider gives a leg aid. If a rider cannot sit the trot and is bounced around, the rising trot is preferable, as not only is the rider uncomfortable, the constant slamming of the rider onto the horse is uncomfortable for the horse, who will hollow its back and stiffen its movement.


Am super tired now! Lesson 3 will be at 7.30AM tomorrow! Wish me luck! (Will try to blog about it.)


~K