Dilemma

Once in a year or two, I am faced with a dilemma. Its like a pattern. As much as I hate to acknowledge it, I hate dilemmas. It make me feel uneasy, incomplete and maybe to a certain extent, insecure. Whoa... I am being towards negative, here, but reality in life strucks. You can't tell them to go away. They are also, somewhat an effect of your own doing. Nevertheless, I believe in letting it out, I mean, honest feelings, to find yourself, be it negative or positive. And that will actually helps to see things objectively, and maybe even find a solution for it.

Today I am hit by one. A dilemma. .. . from a situation which that I've started several years ago. I got involved in a 'financial career path' which I wasn't sure if I really wanted to venture into. Somehow after a few trainings, I feel that it was doable and along the way, I got excited at the prospect. It seemed so easy, yes of course, when you are convinced that its something you wanted to do. Quite a lucrative venture, and with a 'great and friendly' team, what could go wrong?

I did quite a number of prospecting for new trainees. They saw the potentials. And we learned and worked together. Things seems to be going so well. We even had fun....at least for me. I even got promoted to one level higher. Somehow priorities change. While it was a fairly good career path, I do have other responsibilities and obligations. In fact, before my friend called me regarding this venture, I had just relinquished all other prior activities. Which was why I wasn't too sure if I should get involved in anything else at all. Somehow I got 'convinced' by the team. I was willing to try it out, unaware of the culture sets within the organisation.

The 'culture' I was referring to surfaced soon after my friend suddenly decided to be involved in a business. She decided not to concerntrate in just this venture, and 'declare' it to all. That was the biggest mistake ever. Soon, she was asked to relinquish her whole team. And most of us, the newbies, were confused. But we stayed on. We still question, though, what happened to TLC they so preaches? What happened to Big Heart?

After about a year, when I feel its time for me to proritize other things for my family, history was about to repeat itself. However, learning lessons from my friend, I stood firm, and carry on with my decision without letting off any of my team. Hey....there are such things as 'agreement', 'consent' and 'signature'.

A couple of years down the road, I remained an inactive agent with a very active double team. They remained strong and growing. Slow and steady. This somehow creates another situation where some interested party were not too happy with my situation. Not directly, but attempts were made that these people be transfered away from me to their direct team.

I have to make a decision. One, just let my inactivity be, que sera, sera... or plan something. It has to be in line with my priorities. The question is, am I willing to make that change?

Of Gardening and Exercise - Good News and Not-So-Good News

When it comes to health and beauty issues, I'm all for it. Supplements, eating right, exercise, skin care, you name it. If I see good articles online, I will read it and try to practise it. Sometimes I saved it. The only challenge is 'consistency'. I'm very bad when it comes to exercise. Just like taking supplements. Always skip it. But I always try to keep doing it.

Now I have added another interest, which is gardening. I've a few success stories in gardening, so far. My pineapple crowns are sprouting, just waiting to be 'grounded'. My papaya seedlings are growing healthily. The lime, kaffir lime and lemongrass plants are all in 'pink of health' or rather 'green of health'?

And lately, I've advance a stage further. Garden maintenance. Way to go...! Since this is also goint to be part of an exercise routine, I decided to mow my own lawn...hahaha....no kidding!

These are my powerful weapons .....er, garden tools.

I was so excited when my garden tools actually works. The manual lawn mower I last seen was an old rusty one, when I was a kid. Hey, its quite light and effective actually. Then for the edges, the electrical trimmer. Works fine, too, but...... Lets see the results, so far.

My successful attempts...

But along the way, some disastrous results.....eeeek!!

Oh well, if I were to make too many damages to my garden, I'll call the 'professional' grass cutter the next time.

Hahaha...Have a great Day!!

Power of Visualisation - Cats Story Untold

One of the cutest creatures on earth, I feel, are cats. Then maybe bunnies, and little monkeys. I've had all these three as pets, but the cats being the easiest to care for, has been with me the longest. I've had strings of history of cat stories untold.


But at one point of my life, when I learn about the power of dreams and visualisation, I started collecting pictures of cats. I have always wanted to have that cute long-haired persian cats, especially the fiery red or orange coloured cats, so I copied from books, magazines and especially from the internet. Below are some of the pictures I have collected handy to post here.

Then one day I 'forced' a friend to donate me a Persian cat. The full story here and here. It grew from one cat to a family of six. Candy, Oreo, Minty, Pepsi, Muffin and Toffee. Over the period of 5 years, I am left with Oreo and Minty. Father and son. Still, there were no signs of Orange cats. Yet, I did not intend to add anymore cats just then. Minty is smokey grey and Oreo is cream cameo, and on top of that, both are male cats. I don't see a new orange offspring coming.
Then, an incident happened which twist the whole cat story around. The story here and here.

And here is my Orange cat, a dream achieved!! Honeybun!

A Special Long Drive

It was a nice long drive yesterday. I went with a good friend. We hardly meet nowadays, but we do keep in touch. And she invited me to her new home in the neighbouring state. Its not too far from Klang valley, about 30 minutes from Subang Jaya. I would just call it suburbs.

It was beautiful, not only the houses, yes there are two of them, next to each other. One of the houses are not ready yet, but the other one is ready for occupation by this weekend. The scenery was breath-taking. Hilly and green. It was so peaceful and calm, and so serene. Further down, there's a lake where one can do fishing.


The houses are colonial style, practically nostalgic. Kind of reminds me of the old government quarters, with a new modern twist, of course.

It comes with their own private driveway, about 0.3km run, since these are the only 2 houses 'occupying' the road. Amazing!

But the best thing of all, is the orchard surrounding it, especially the durians! My favourite!! There are big trees and small trees. Some of them, even I can reach. Its been a while since I last went to a dusun and boy, was I really excited if you could live in one.

I am so happy and proud of her. I knew her for quite some time, and basically knows that she's gone through thick and thin.

And guess what? This is one of her dreams fulfilled! She applies 'The Secret' principles and The Law of Atrraction. And I need to dream bigger....!

To my dear friend, a big Congratulations!

Starting on the Pineapples!

Ok, here's the tricky part...my first question before I learned anything about planting pineapples. Where are the seeds? Is it in the 'eyes'? Must be very small.... where is it??

That was how ignorant I was. I always took it for granted that pineapples are there anytime you need it. Sometimes I take a lot, but after a while when I start to have this raw toungue or itchy throat, I'd stop taking it for a while. So eating pineapples is seasonal for me, even when its available all year round. But I just love pineapples on pizza or in my sweet and sour fish dish. It also tastes good in ikan gulai assam rebus. And pineapples tarts...! That's another topic of passion...er, I mean, discussion.

So back to the question, how do you plant it? Here's what I found. Pineapples are actually bromeliads, and so it does not have seeds. It is related to Spanish moss and some interesting ornamental plants. These ornamentals are interesting in that they absorb water and nutrients from a water-tight reservoir formed where the leaves come together, or by absorptive hairs which cover the Spanish moss and similar bromeliads, allowing them to draw water and nutrients from the fog and dust in the air. Amazing, isn't it!

Pineapples reproduce using "pups" from their base. Once a pineapple plant flowers and grows a fruit, that plant will never produce fruit again, unless it has shoots from the mother plant.

So, from my 'research', you need to cut off or pull out the crown fron the fruit by twisting it off. In my case, I just chopped it up. Peel the fruit, and eat the flesh.... or save it in the refrigerator for later indulgence. Remove the excess flesh and peel of some leaves from the crown, about 1/4 of the leaves to leave a base to the crown. You can either soak this base in a glass of water, or plant it in the pot or straight to the ground. I decided to try the first option. It'll be interetsing to see the root sprouts.

This one looks real yummy, isn't it? Well...it was!

Waiting......waiting.......waiting.........

Pineapples may be the healthiest fruit around. It contains enzymes that help you digest protein. So when you eat a lot of meat, go BBQ-ing, it's a good idea to eat some pineapples or drink some juice.

This delicously tangy fruit are also full of Vitamin C, omega-3 fatty acids, beta carotene and other nutrients as well. Pineapples also contain bromelain which has is anti-inflammatory and may decrease blood clotting as well.

The only 'challenge' I see is this fruit is that it takes 1-2 years to fruit, which means I won't be enjoying the 'fruit of my labour' fast enough and repeats are also tough because I don't have a plantation size backyard to grow it for a whole year round supply. So, unlike the papayas, its still back to the supermarket to enjoy pineapples. Thus, this one plant is to be my trial plant and a hobby, apparently.

Yes, They Are Papaya Seedlings Alright!

Initially after my excitement of seeing my papaya sprouts in the pot is over, I began to doubt. Are they really papaya sprouts, as they could be any weeds sprouts, the one that always appear in my other flower pots.

Then, after a couple more days, I took a peek again. There are more of them, and those sprouting earlier seems to grow stronger! Yep, papayas, alright! In my recycled flower pot.

After a few more readings on the next step, I discovered another school of thought, that you shouldn't grow them in pots or nursery bags, but the location where you want them grow. Oh well, too late for that. I'll make do with this current arrangement.

I just need to transfer them to the location. At first my intention is just to replant one or two plants only and hopefully they are male and female, but not according to that source. I need to plant several, and in my case, maybe all. Then once they grew and you can identify the male/female from their flowers, then you can remove the unwanted ones. The flowers of the male and female plants below.

The Female Plant. The flowers are in singles in a stem.

The male plant. There a several smaller flowers a stem.

You need both male and female plant for the papaya to fruit. Otherwise they will just bear flowers and will not fruit. You need only one male plant to fruit ten female plants.

Ok, my next project, I decided is pinapples!