Weekend is about...

...letting the kids play...

...and letting myself play.

iPhone 6 Photos Taking Up Unusual Large Space

This is my second post on techno gadgety stuff. And I really have to share this.

My Photo Album was 7.9 GB.... like forever, even though I religiously delete photos from the Album and the Recently Deleted folder. I didn't want to touch the iCloud because I hate the hassle.

Then I learnt this trick that worked!!

Change your Date & Time by going back to a few years ago... say 2011? Any month and day will do.

Here's how to do it:

Settings >General >Date & Time > Turn off the 'Set Automatically', then adjust your time to 2011.

Don't worry, you can reset the date back.

Then, go to your Photos > Recently Deleted folder. You will see hundreds or thousands of photos there! If you don't, go back to Photos and check if there are any other folders with a huge number of photos. If you still don't, I'm sorry then, I don't have the solution.

OK, delete all those photos in the Recently Deleted folder. You'll have to touch the 'Select' on the upper right corner, then touch 'Delete All' on the lower left corner.

To check the new storage:

Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage (under Storage) > you'll see that your Photos & Camera storage is back to a decent MB.

Now, go back and reset your time back to your current one.

Good luck!

Kan Cheongness to come...

I have a few upcoming kancheongnesses:

Satu:
My paypal account has been limited. I can't use it to buy things, and I can't receive money. Which means, no business. Like MANY issues with big organisations, their system is not perfect and efficient. The staff may overlook something and you are back to square one.

Recently I was asked to submit documents to prove that I am the owner of the account and the business. I submitted. Then I waited for weeks. No response from them, until I called paypal last night. I was happy when they told me they have all my documents and will review it, and lift my account limitations within 24 hours. But this morning, I received an email to request for documents...again! So I uploaded...again. And called. Fingers crossed, it will be resolved soon.

Dua:
The husband's pals are having a BBQ party this Friday. I will be making potato salad and quiche...AFTER dinnertime tonight and tomorrow night. Which means I only have a couple of hours to execute this ninja feat.

Tiga:
I just found out about Darren's Halloween Costume Competition & Deepavali Celebration for this Saturday. Of course, I could totally ignore this and just dress him up in his regular clothes and act like I don't give a rat's ass. But I do. I won't have another 5 year old to play Halloween anymore!!
SO.... I will try to make him a costume... in 2.5 days. We might just win a trip to Sweden. By the way, how rich are kindergarten companies?

Now...what costume should I make for an obnoxious 5 year old?

Seagate Backup Plus Slim Hard Disk for Mac

I have never in my blogging life, posted something technical on gadgets. But I found this to be very useful, so I'd like to share, because I believe there are techno-blondes like me out there.

I bought a Seagate Backup Plus Slim Portable Drive. I wanted to keep all my photos, my artworks and fonts in it as a storage and backup. Should be easy right? Plug and play? No lor.

I plugged it in, and a window pops up. I followed the instruction on the manual, to install the Seagate Dashboard Installer.dmg. Done. at one point you will have to select 'For Mac and PC' or 'For Mac'. I selected 'For Mac and PC', just in case. Done.

But I couldn't drag and drop my files into it. The Seagate Dashboard looks so alien to me. 

After much researching,  this is what I did, and it worked. The manual doesn't tell you this.

Go to Seagate's Support site and download the NTFS driver for Mac OS X.

That's it!! Now you can copy and paste your valuables onto your drive.

The Crafter's Crossroad

Lately, I've been a bit artistically demotivated. I've been making a lot of things for fun and selling them on my Etsy shop, and even though it cannot generate that kind of income to support my life, it was just..fun. But I feel that I don't have an identity. I'm not creating a brand that is identifiable and differentiated. And I'm just doing this on a whim and fancy. No real long term goals. No seriousness.

So I think I've reach the crossroad. Should I continue making rojak stuff, or focus on a craft to refine. I enjoy rojak, I love varieties. But successful brands don't sell rojak. Except, Amazon, eBay and qoo10. Yah.

Feeling lost, I spent last weekend pensively. I cycled to breakfast and on the way back, I stopped to pick grasses and weeds. I've always loved nature, and the art it can make.

Then I created these.

I felt so calm, peaceful and happy. Is this what I should pursue? Or is this another whim and fancy.

I'll see...

All In A Day's Work

That day a colleague asked me, "How long is your drive home?" I get asked many times, trust me. So I gave my standard pre-recorded answer, "Ohh, well... about an hour, in a good traffic I guess?". This Q&A is very common for me. People are always amazed that I commute to work from JB everyday.
But that day, I was asked this question for the first time, "Wow.... do you get to spend time with your kids?"

Hmmm... as a matter of fact, I do! Since people are wondering, this is my weekday's routine.

I wake up at 5am. I peek into my boys' room to see them sleeping like angels. So beautiful.

I drive to pick up a carpool passenger on the way, and head to the second link customs. Traffic is long for a stretch of period, dunno why. But these days, it's been pretty good.. also dunno why. It's so mysterious, you know, like a season or something.

I reach my office at 6.45am on a good traffic day. On bad traffic days, God knows. But I'm still early, at 7.30am.

Work. Then at lunchtime, my workmates and I go out for lunch. Sometimes, just at the food court at the the next building, sometimes we venture a bit further out. I get to shop for a bit for things that I can't get in Malaysia. Then back to work.

I start my journey home at about 5.30pm, sometimes earlier. I pick up my carpool passengers and head off to the Tuas checkpoint. Traffic is bearable. I drop my passengers off respectively.

I reach home at 6.30pm, on average. My boys are watching TV. I take them out to the playground near our house. We cycle there. Or sometimes, we play badminton outside our house. I just try to get them out of the house as much as possible, even for a short time. Then at 7pm, we hear the azan. The boys know it's time to go home.

At home, we chill for 5 to 10 minutes before dinner starts. I'm extremely lucky to have a helper who can cook well. So we start dinner. Sometimes, the husband is not back yet, but we eat nonetheless, because Daniel has tuition at 8pm, twice a week. I love meals together. We'd talk about anything and everything that happened that day. Like a dinner meeting. I think it's important for families to have meals together on a daily basis.

After dinner, we chill at the living room. We eat our fruits. Daniel showers and get ready for tuition, while I play with Darren. On days Daniel doesn't have tuition, we'd all just hang out together. Sometimes, we go to Giant to get our household necessities. Or run errands like change money and pay bills at the ATM. Or sometimes, I'd go to the kitchen and prepare a special dish for the next day's dinner. I'd marinade something, then write down instructions for my helper to complete the dish the next day.

I get the boys to their room to check their homeworks. Or tutor Daniel. He still need improvement in his Bahasa. He likes to fidget and get his hands busy when he studies. He is easily distracted too. I get stern a lot of times with him. Darren on the other hand, is rather focused. When he is into something, he concentrates. Sometimes he gets side-tracked too. He is disciplined in the sense that he'd be determined to finish his homework no matter how late it gets.

I get the boys to shower. I help Darren sometimes, though he can shower by himself now, but I still need to wash his buttocks to make sure it's clean. It's heartwarming to see them bath and play together. It's every mother's dream to see her children get along and love each other...uhhuh.

They get into bed by 9.30pm. I read Darren a bedtime story. I used to do this with Daniel, but now I want him to read by himself. Daniel packs his school books for the next day. I kiss them goodnight.

This is actually the reading corner in MY room. Usually, we'd read in their cozy room. 

I take a shower. I choose my attire for the next day, so that I don't spend a lot of time mulling in the morning. I check my wallet to make sure I have enough cash to pump petrol or to top-up my Touch-n-Go card.

If I'm not dead tired yet, I'd go to my craft station and inhale the air there. If I'm not inspired, I go to bed. Haha. By now it's already 10.30pm.

Rinse and repeat.

Peeved...

You know, Facebook is awesome and all but sometimes it really gets to me. Maybe I'm really not a social media person. Or worse, I'm really not social. *embarassed grin*

So based on this fact that I'm not social on media, I just don't understand certain individuals who has a constant need to post things on FB. And worse, some couples I know, seem to habitually communicate through the public media. Why...

OK, my Nombor Satu pet peeve:

The Baby
A couple of people in my FB had a baby. So cute right? All babies are cute of course, especially your own. I remember this saying, "There is only one beautiful baby in the world, and every mother has it" But obviously, some moms seem to believe "There is only one beautiful baby... MINE!!!!" Of course this can be true, but please, keep it to yourself, k? I totally understand the overwhelming love you have as a first-time mother, and you're enraptured in this magical bond between you and your firstborn. But some people need to publicize this. On a weekly basis. Even daily. Can someone kill me?

So basically, every photo postings I see of that baby literally screams "LOOK AT MY BABY! LOOK AT MY BABY!!" It's no longer cute. And worse, when it comes with the caption, "My little precious's many faces/pattern liao liao" when there is clearly NO SIGNIFICANT differences in the baby's expression, in that 50 photo montage.

So, I wonder, what is the acceptable frequency of baby photo postings? I don't know. I've seen this baby's photo on FB every 2-3 days ever since he was born. Max... 5 days. Maybe that is the norm for some people? Not to me...

My Nombor Dua pet peeve:

The Home Cooked Food
This one is rather grey line. Maybe some people feel a simple homely meal like steamed fish, kailan and ABC soup is worth sharing. Maybe they believe others have not seen such meals before. Or maybe they thought it's a Masterchef feat. I dunno la. But seriously, I only see one thing, and one thing only.

Nak mintak puji, ni. You'll see that all the comments will be "WOW, look so yummy!", "OOHHHH, you can really cook so well!" and "Bo jio!"..hahaha. Now aint' that an ego-booster?

Don't get me wrong, I love to see what my friends whip up in the kitchen now and then.. you know, something atypical. Like, if you baked a quiche for the first time, like mua, yes, please post it!

OK, finish ranting!

Miyakori Cafe @ Bukit Indah

UPDATE: This cute cafe has moved to City Square Mall, JB.

If you like the zen type of kawaii, you should visit this cafe. Even the name is kawaii. Their signature is the kawaii face on their cakes and coffees. OK, cuteness aside, I shall review the food based on gustatory.

Cute.

Cute.

Cute.

Cute.

Cute. Why the sad face though. Chocolate makes me happy! This cake is quite good.

Their cat-pucinno. 

Mushroom soup. I have to say, it is very good. Not your typical kind of creamy Campbell-like mushroom soup. You can actually feel the bits and pieces of mushroom in this.

HOkay... I am rather disappointed in this ubiquitous breakfast set all the cafes serve. They all have sausage, ham, salad, scrambled eggs, sauteed mushroom, tomatoes and garlic bread. All sama punya.

The sausage and ham tastes like salty fish cakes. And I HATE fish cakes. I expected better quality processed meat from a Japanese cafe. Seriously. The rest on the plate was mediocre.

The best ones are still from Cafe Racer by GrillBar and The Brew Orchestra.

The husband and the boys had Japanese Curry Rice, and Thai Fried Chicken Rice, which are OK. 

Till the next cafe-hoppin' day!

Miyakori Cafe

41, Jalan Indah 22/14, 81200 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
+60 7-244 4882

Awesome Buys - Fog Linen and kikki.k

I have to tell you, I haven't been shopping lately. When I do, I am very selective, and I'd wait for sale, or I'd just wait until I cannot tahan anymore.

SO... I succumbed to Fog Linen. They really market very well. Every site I'm at, I see Fog Linen's ads.

I've been dying to get my hands on their 100% linen. And I extremely love the simple design... very Japanese! So when one tablecloth was on 50% sale, I grabbed it, along with some mightaswells.

Hmm.. actually, I don't have any ideas what to do with these remnants...

Next! I received a $10 voucher for kikki. k so I got this stamp set I have been eyeing on.

This is really a retail therapy for me!

Actually, my dream is to grow a company like these two. I want to design and sell beautiful products. I wish I could have the opportunity to learn their every step, from their drawing board, to finding a manufacturer. Yep, that is my lifelong dream...