YowCH & Grace

On 22 June, YowCH took the Odyssey to change the tyres. You can see the old Goodyear F1 Asymmetric 3 very worn, after about 41,000km.

We bought Goodyear F1 Asymmetric 5 (looks the same as the Asymmetric 3) at $220 each.


Looks good and feels much safer with the good grip of new tyres.

While at Arrow Tyres, he also changed the car battery, keeping to Amaron, $165.

After changing the tyres, he drove over to Kenny for alignment, after 16 months and 23,700km of rough driving, the alignment was slightly off. Kenny also compensated the alignment a little based on the wearing pattern of the previous set of tyres.

Tags: General by yowch
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YowCH and Grace made a trip to Ikea on 19 June after they reopened for business to buy a table and a chair.

Joseph assembled the chair very well.

Unfortunately, he slipped and dropped the tampered glass table top and it smashed to pieces.

YowCH took some shelving planks from our stash and made a wooden table top.

Works well.

Tags: General, Grace, Joseph, YowCH by yowch
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We recorded another worship session for KFC (Junior Sunday School) on 9 June 2020. Due to urgency, only YowCH, Esther and Joseph, with David recording the video.


A check on the car, we managed to drive 603km on 1 tank of fuel before refueling, about 11.0km/L, in May-June, as the traffic was very light during the Covid-19 Circuit Breaker period. The meter is not too accurate.

Joseph and Samuel received face-shields from school.

YowCH instructed Samuel to read some Chinese, and he just fell asleep shortly after.

Samuel received a care-pack from the school day-care centre (YMCA). Came with Maggi tom-yum.

On Sunday 14 June, Samuel was very enthusiastic in worship.

Tags: Church, Family, General, Samuel by yowch
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Grace bought a second hand high-tech sewing machine on 8 June 2020, the Singer Futura CE-250 for $590 (including transport). This machine is about 10 years old, but very lightly used by the previous owner. The original listed price was US$900. It comes with an embroidery attachment, but it needs a computer to run the software.

The seller threw in some goodies like scissors, threads, and accessories. Also came with 2 DVDs of Singer software.

Trying it out for the first time.

Many stitching patterns and even automatic button hole.

Trying out embroidery, using Esther’s old laptop. The software runs on Windows 7, needed to set compatibility backwards to make the software work.

Using a built-in clip-art, success!

Then we got adventurous and downloaded a picture of Totoro, and programmed it for embroidery

Successful, too!

Grace ordered some embroidery thread from Carousell sellers, and they arrived really fast (like the very next day).

Made a KTP logo onto the SJ issued mask.

Some fun stuff we made:


The phoenix for Joseph looks very nice, you can see the details.

This machine now replaced the basic sewing machine that Grace had been using.

Tags: General, Grace by yowch
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Second week of June, Samuel’s return to school.

YowCH took part in a Covid-19 research (giving blood sample), and for his efforts, received $70 NTUC vouchers.

He also went to the chiropractic to check on his back pains, and while waiting for his appointment, he had a haircut.

In the afternoon, David worked on another piece of siew yuk.


Sadly, the skin is still not crispy. We need to refine our method further.

Tags: David, General, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
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Our food photos are here (Part 2):
FOOD!
We will update again in July.

Tags: General by yowch
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Samuel’s church meeting, big group on Zoom.

We watched the Michael Bay Transformers movies, and took out the toys for Samuel to have some fun.

We did some home improvement works (in this case adding a shelf to Esther’s table), but the drill spoilt. YowCH opened it and found that the problem is the electrical direction switch, with the forward drive spoilt and the drill only works in reverse. So YowCH shifted teh wires around to make teh drill work in forawrd, but no more reverse now. Replacement part is too expensive and not worth the money.

YowCH received a cheque from Prudential for $500.00, benefits for having served Quarantine Order due to Covid. Good pocket money!

Another BCG meeting online.

The whole family recorded another church choir session (David was conducting and doing the filming on the camera). We had 3 good takes, but about 12 bad starts, mostly with us laughing due due to Samuel’s behaviour.

Esther also contributed to the church Youth Service worship.

Samuel doing church activities online.

We contacted our friends, the Lims, in Melbourne, Australia, to catch up with them in this Covid period.

We still drove the Odyssey around, mostly sending and picking Grace as she is working daily at KKH. But the roads were quite empty and we had great fuel efficiency, covering more than 600km in 1 tank (55L) of petrol!

Things in the house keeps needing maintenance, the plug point plastic broke, and YowCH had to buy the part (the box against the wall) to replace it. The face was changed about a year ago.

YowCH bought a sound mixer for Esther, to let her have better mixing controls for the worship and other musical recordings.

Joseph built his Gundam robot.

YowCH had to visit his construction site prior to the planned worksites re-opening on 2 June.

We picked up an old light cover that a neighbour thrown away, and it serves well as a Bey Blade arena.

Grace and YowCH went out to buy some food, and picked up the government-issued “improved” masks on 30 May.

Tags: Church, Esther, Family, Friends, General, Joseph, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
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We did many rounds of siew yuk (roast pork belly). So far, not successful in making the skin crunchy. But the taste is good. Mostly by David and YowCH.
Round 1: 6 May 2020.

Round 2: 7 May 2020, made the wooden frame to support the meat to allow oil dripping.

Round 3: 15 May 2020, made more at one go, save electricity.

Round 4: 26 May 2020, made a tool to try to rupture the skin, didn’t work.

Tags: General by yowch
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In the Covid lockdown period, we planted some tougeh. It was Joseph’s idea. Only needed 4 days.

Must keep in the dark to prevent bitter taste. Joseph helped prepared them.

Tasted ok, but rather skinny.

Tags: General by yowch
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Esther hit her shin on the car back row seat a few time, because there is a steel loop for the buckle to hold down the seat after folding down. So YowCH used a sheet of aluminium and folded a cover for the loop, and padded it with materials salvaged from a old sock. Softens the impact when the leg strikes the loop.

On Sunday, 15 March, Joseph returned to soccer after his ‘no-sports’ M.C. for the fracture of his little finger. Samuel was playing well, too.

Our dinner 19 March, pan seared salmon. The salmon was bought from a vending machine, not too bad, and very cheap ($3.00 each piece). the soup is tong-o with eggs.

On 20 March, we had meatballs, eggs, vege-siewyuk and can soup with bread for dinner.

Tags: General, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
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