Procastinating in April

Qing Ming aka Tomb sweeping day or All Souls Day falls on the 4th of April this year according to the Chinese calendar. We have a period of 2 weeks before and after  to pay our respects to the dead. In my case, I don't decide on the date, I was told Sunday 3rd and we just packed for my MIL's home. This year SIL being the DIL of the elder son, MIL gives her the authority to prep things needed, while I am just happy to be the sidekick. It was a day of mini gathering of  immediate family only.

The following weekend had me headed down to our Historical City of Malacca.   I have mentioned about this city before in my previous post when we did a little more of a touristy stuff. You can looked it up at my side bar if this interest you. Our purpose of this trip is to visit the orthopedic where MIL had her knee surgery in 2007. It has been a twice yearly trip ever since and the last of her two visits for the year. Glad to get that done with or I'll be constantly reminded.

While in Malacca, we had to savour this Chicken Rice Ball which is one of its kind. I mean who would thought of rice made into balls for consumption ? The best Chicken rice balls to our liking is a little out of town and out of the  tourist area, located at Batu Berendam  known as  Huang Chang Chicken Rice Restaurant.

What we like about here is the rice balls unlike those from the tourist area. The chicken is much more succulent and tastier too, more to our liking actually, but by looking at it's crowds, we are  not alone.

 My favourite Durian puff from Jonker Street.

Located at a pre-war building and they are very proud of one mouthful per puff that pops in your mouth.

I have yet to finish anything small from my UFO stash this month nor have I started on anything from my WIP that I had intended to work on since the beginning of the year. Can you believed the first quarter of the year has already gone by? My procrastinating mode is still on and instead I went on to work on 1/2" hexagons for a an unspoken SAL with the ladies from the WSG group, a result from out recent meetup.

It's unspoken because we never agreed to SAL on this actually but somehow got enticed when someone started on it, posted it on FB and that kinda put us or rather me scrambling for it. Talking about kiasu. Will see how it goes, caused the applique part is a bit of a struggle to work on.  I had to stitch the words twice too because I wasn't happy with the result the first time.

I have since put together the required 25 pieces of hexagons

I made some extra hexagons in various fabric so I could play with the colors a bit. Then I sort of position and laid out the hexagons in it's required order just to visualized as how it would be. More progress coming up next.

My  apology to some of you who have not receive my little "Thank Yous" for your comments. Actually, I did sent an email but something is not working and functioning properly as I was prompted with a returned message that reads, "Mail Delivery Notification for  Delivery Status Failure" . I can't find what's wrong with my pc at this moment, so until then please do accept my thank you for your visits and sweet comments that I so appreciate.

A note on our weather here, it has gone haywire for some months now. Today it's 97F and feels like 105F and that is scorching hot for us although we are so used to the hot weather. This weather is drying up our land and water reserve. The sky may be cloudy but there is no rain or the little rain that falls is insufficient to replenish what the sun has dried up...sadly

Till my next post, take time to smell some flowers from wherever you may be.

Paying tribute

In conjuction with Qing Ming, the actual day is today, another festival in accordance to the Chinese calender that bring familiy members far and near together to pay homage to ancestors. The family choose Sunday so that everyone is able to attend to conduct their fillial piety duties.

After the graves are cleared of weeds and dirt, the rituals begins .

In search of a grave belonging to an uncle 'Found it !! ' . We had a total of 5 or was it 6 graves to attend to. These kids are the 6th generation and had been attending to such rituals since young.......a reminder of their roots.

Edited : The famous four, missing one, for Diane who just returned from camp is too tired to join the 'troop'.

Breaking Dawn

Chinese's all soul's day equivalent falls on April 4th this year, taboo has it that rituals can be performe anytime a week before or after the date. The oldest surviving elder, always decide the date and members of the family are to return to the ancestral home for the occassion.

Today is the choosen date by MIL and it involves 5- 6 graves to attend in 2 separate locations. As in previous years, we started the day early, at 7am but this year the sky was rather dark instead of the bright and sunny sky that normally greeted us. We arrived at the first cementary and caught sight of the first light, DD managed to capture some of its moments on her mobile.
then we thought we should wait a little while we did what we had came for and forgot about it until the sun has gone a little too high.

We had a tired weekend, like we had gone on a hike or something. Hope yours was pleasant and wonderful.