Honey, I forgot..........

Pregnancy does cause memory loss

Science has now confirmed what expectant moms already know: Carrying a baby makes them more forgetful. A recent study by two Australian researchers has found that pregnant women do experience a slight loss of memory -- and in many cases, the forgetfulness continues after birth.

The memory loss is subtle, and usually involves unfamiliar or demanding tasks, Dr. Julie Henry, one of the authors of the study, told CNN .

Hmm......got to check with Soo Pei whether she remember.

Moment of peace

Two of our baby (Reanne and Ivan) fast asleep in their afternoon nap.

Here lay two innocent soul waiting to be crafted, mold and transformed into God's perfect plan.

Lord, grand us Your grace and wisdom as parents to become part of Your instruments to make them mighty man and women of God.

Happy Marriage, Happy Heart

Study finds contented mates enjoy lower blood pressure

Happily married people have lower blood pressure than unhappy married people or singles, a Brigham Young University study says.

On the other hand, even having a supportive social network did not translate into a blood pressure benefit for singles or unhappy married people, according to the study.

"There seem to be some unique health benefits from marriage. It's not just being married that benefits health -- what's really the most protective of health is having a happy marriage,"

Getting married is just the first step which is relatively easy, after that ‘happiness’ is the continuous afford of commitment and making it happens. I would says it worth the afford giving the benefit of health.

So, are you married? If not now, when? Why not then.

'Add Rice' No More

The Government recently announced in the news, will introduce a holistic package to deal with the global shortage of food including calling for a reduction in rice consumption. This is to follow what the Thai Government’s recent call for their people to reduce rice consumption to address the global spiraling of prices and acute shortage of staple food. In Bangladesh, their government already is asking its people to switch to potatoes as alternative.

Did you know that adult Malaysian consumes a per capita average of 77kg of rice per annum? To be exact, we eat about 200g a day! If you eat twice a day, it would be 100g per meal. Bear in mind, most noodles are also made from rice.

I know my family already has been reducing rice consumption quite a while ago. Not because of shortage issues but for health issues. That would be another topic to cover.

So, Malaysian get ready to say no to ‘add rice’ especially when going for banana leaf rice or chicken rice. That also mean Nasi lemak Antarabangsa definitely gonna be affected since internationally rice is of shortage! Need to change to Nasi Lemak Tempatan…….

What else can we eat la?

E-asy Tax Got E-rror

"Tax Deadline Rush Causes System To Malfunction"

Woh, what a head line in the news today. I spoke to soon in my last post. People waited for as long as one hour to login to the system due to 'heavy traffic' as people (like us) doing the last minutes mad rush.

Anyhow the IRB people managed to pull the system together to hold.

Thank God ours got through smoothly.

E-asy Tax

Finally, we managed to submit our income tax.......online! First ever for us.

E-Filling amazingly it's very easy, hassle free and friendly. I gotta admit the government did a pretty good job this round. We were skeptical when it was launch two years ago. Main concern is that can the system hold or worst crash down.

Sad part is that I end up still gotto pay tax :(

This year need to be wise and plan ahead on our tax management. Last year, we have not fully utilize the allowable deduction/rebate especially for books and medical check up. That itself already RM1,500 of tax saving. Tax savvy time!

Dejavu

Lately this few nites after Soo Pei have resumed her works, we start to get back the 'dejavu' we dread much about. Oh, it is back again! Nature sound of music breaching the silence nite. This time is by our 2 months old, Reanne.

We just have no idea what trigger her 'alarm system'. How we wish the 'Snooze Belly Button' shown here in the cartoon existed, just by the push of a button. Presto! Yes, we sound 'desperate'.

Reanne is still being breast feed. This dedication of mother's love is getting pretty challenging for Soo Pei. She got to wake up earlier a bit to pump the breast milk for storage before going to work. No wonder mother's love knows no boundary. How much more is God's love!

The rest of day, Reanne is just a cute and sweet little innocent angle.

What You Eat Determine Your Baby Sexs

Women on low-calorie diets or who skip breakfast at the time of conception are more likely to give birth to girls than boys, British scientists said on Wednesday.

New research by the universities of Exeter and Oxford provides the first evidence that a child's sex is associated with the mother's diet, and higher energy intake is linked to males.

"This research may help to explain why in developed countries, where many young women choose to have low-calorie diets, the proportion of boys born is falling," said Fiona Mathews of the University of Exeter.

There has been a small but consistent decline, of about one per 1,000 births annually, in the proportion of boys being born in industrialised countries over the past 40 years.

In humans, going without breakfast may be interpreted by the body as signalling low food availability, since it depresses levels of blood sugar.

Although sex is genetically determined by fathers, it is known that high levels of glucose encourage the growth and development of male embryos while inhibiting female ones, although the exact mechanism is unclear.

Mathews and colleagues studied 740 first-time pregnant mothers in Britain and found 56 percent of those in the group with the highest energy intake at conception had sons, compared with 45 percent in the lowest group.

In evolutionary terms, this correlation may make sense.

Males' breeding potential is strongly influenced by fitness, while females breed more consistently.

"If a mother has plentiful resources then it can make sense to invest in producing a son because he is likely to produce more grandchildren than would a daughter. However, in leaner times having a daughter is a safer bet," Mathews said.

Some researchers have been sounding alarms for years over the change in sex ratios in developed countries and have in the past blamed pollutants and synthetic chemicals such as those found in some pesticides which disrupt human hormones.

The latest findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Baby Idol 2008

Starting from 11 February till 31 July 2008, MIX fm will be on the lookout for the cutest baby of all. Every week, two baby photos with the highest votes will be deemed the weekly winners and will be in the running for the grand prize of RM 3,000 cash in August 2008!

Step 1 – Submit One (1) of your best baby photo

(Please upload only *.jpg,*.gif or *.jpeg files and the size must be below 51kb (51200 bytes), 200 X 150 pixels)

Step 2 – Keep voting

Step 3 – Be a weekly winner

Step 4 – All weekly winners battle it out in a voting frenzy to clinch the title of MIX fm’s Baby Idol and to win RM 3,000 in cash. It’s in your hands!

Select the cutest baby picture and vote for it to be in the running for the grand prize of RM 3,000 in MIX fm’s Baby Idol. To spice things up, you may vote for a baby picture to be in or out. The two baby photos with the highest votes every week will be the weekly winners and automatically be in the running for MIX fm’s Baby Idol.

If you decide to vote a baby photo out, the one with the most votes out every month will be removed from the gallery, whereas the baby photo with the most votes in will be displayed on the main page of our website.

Start voting now for a chance to win MIX fm’s Baby Ido

Please do our parts

To mark this special Earth Day lets do our parts to save our mother nature with this 10 simple ways to combat the rising global warming causes by the release of CO2 and other heat trapping gases into the atmosphere. The gases act like a thick blanket, trapping the sun's heat and causing the planet to warm up.

1. Change a light. Replace one regular light bulb with an energy saving light bulb will save 67.5kg of CO2 a year.
2. Drive less. Walk, bike, carpool or takes mass transit more often.
3. Recycle more. We can save 1,080kg of CO2 per year by recycling just half of our household waste
4. Pump yp our tyres. Keeping our car tyres inflated properly can improve petrol mileage by more than 3%. Every 4.4 litres of petrol saved keeps 9kg of CO2 out of the atmosphere
5. Use less hot water. It takes a lot of enery to heat water. Use less hot water by installing a low-flow showerhead.
6. Avoid products with packaging. We can save 540kg if we cut down on our garbage by 10%
7. Adjust our air-con. Moving the thermostat just 2 degree can save about 900kg of CO2 a year.
8. Plant a tree. A single tree will absort over a 1,000kg of CO2 over its lifetime.
9. Turn off electronic devices. Switching off our TV, DVD player, hi-fi set and computer when we're not using them will save thousands of kg of CO2
10. Watch the "An Inconvenient Truth" documentary on HBO. Catch what former US vice-president Al Gore has to say about the state of planet Earth and share it with our friends.

Article abstracted from The Sun on Earth Day Special.

Parkson on SALE

Ladies and gentlement....and kids a like. Lets grab the discounts!
Word of caution. Buy what is needed not want. On the other hand, have fun.

Energy Saving

Last Saturday when to a Home & Properties Fair at Mid Valley Kuala Lumpur purposes to hunt for a very interesting device. It came to my attention few weeks ago while reading Haven, a renown lifestyle & home magazine. I mean it really 'caught' me eye balls.

It was a two full pages of ads. Big words. Bold statements. It says "plug it in and immediately SAVE up to 40% of your electricity bill". I'm sure you would say what....sure or not.

Anyhow, I went and visited their booth. Ask few straight to the point questions.....are you sure it works. Confidently the man said "YES" with money back guarantee. (They offered 60 days money back guarantee should the device doesn't save your electricity bill). Cut the story short I went for it with RM359.00 lesser from my pocket.

Why the with this costly 'investment' you say. If your electricity bill is not more than RM100.00 a month and ignorantly unaware of the rising cost ballooned by recent incremental fossil fuel cost. Then I don't blame you. Haven't you heard the possibility of eletricity tariff will increase? Wake up!!!!

Based on my own estimation, if the device a.k.a E2 Saver did what it claim can I could divert RM25.00 a month with total RM300 a year to my saving account (say realistically 25% cost saved). Not bad for an investment given the 2nd year I got my return back.

I shall gives my full verdict when my next electricity bill arrived. Meanwhile......check it out yourselves at www.e2saver.com.my. By the way, the retail price is RM459.00.

Kuantan Trip

After almost two months of confinement for Soo Pei and just few more days to resume her office works, we decide for a 'short' breakaway. At least only among ourselves (CK+SP=I&R). We went to a small village at Balok Beach near Kuantan, Pahang (with beach of course).

Our journey there from house take quite a while. I under estimated the long hour drive needed. Anyhow, we manage to stop by Bentong for lunch as detour and rush back our journey.

We reach our destination though a bit lost finding our way to the resort. Thats remind me to bring map along for next trip. Can't afford a GPS device which is a talk of the town nowadays. Gotta do the old fashion way....which is the best way. Straight we went to the beach. After getting our feet wets, both Ivan and I went to the pool. Only manage for a short dip.

Dinner we keep it simple. We dine with the local at their 'joint'. We choose the one with most crowd, it won't be wrong as the general rule thump goes.

The next morning activities was none other than the pool of course. Ivan loves it! He has his trill there. Later we did a photo sessions at the beach before we depart our journey back home. It was an enjoyable one especially seeing the sea and the windy breeze. We have travel a total 600 over km. It was the first outstation trip for Reanne. Not bad for a less than two months old baby!

Family Blog

This is our first family blog ever created. So excited! So much to share and yet don't know where to begin. Well, anyway this is our story.....