New ideas for living space improvement

In the resonance of my keen impression on some images of German new styles of open living spaces to surrounding environment shown on TV last night, I was very inspired this morning to begin searching online some new accessories for a changing look for my own apartment to welcome our coming Lunar New Year. Moreover, as we are planning to re-arrange our entertainment corner and our small yard in front, we are now badly in need of new ideas for simple but beautiful and harmonious focal points.

Many other times, I had to spend hours with my eyes too tired for looking across many many related websites but could not find anything of my favorite or suitable for my purpose of use. However, this time, I was so lucky that right at the beginning my eyes caught a website on creative ways of gardening for home décor. I was passionate in reading their quick guide of how to create a small container garden inside or outside to decorate and refresh our living space. Here are some images of their strange and nice-looking container gardens and water feature which I like though small:

















In an uplifting feeling, I made a Ceylon tea for myself and enjoyed it as encouragement for continuing searching for new other things. Only a few minutes later, I saw in the website of InteriorArcode – a UK brand specialized in interior design and house decorating - some simple ways of minimal fixtures arrangement as shown in the photos below which I thought maybe suitable for us to apply partly:













Quite by chance, I went on surfacing same website and suddenly had a nice surprise when seeing the following amazing living room designs – which I would like to share to all of you now:






















As all of us can see, they use the red and white color combination in different ways. Knowing all these designs are suitable for younger people, I still find all of them fascinating, daring and creative. White is considered to be subtle and Red very intense. Together these colors seem to create a great combination. In some living rooms, the color red is used scanty as an accent while in others it dominates more than white. I do not comment enough as interests differ to each person. But it is sure that with each ratio between White and Red, the feeling and atmosphere created for the living space is quite different. Finally I would like to thank the designers for their great amount of thought in designing these so that now we can enjoy their unique beauty and possibly some you of us can apply to their own projects.

I will try better for my son

For more than a week now, Tuan’s apparent progress in his preliminary English skills, particularly his quick understanding of the difference in use between various model sentences (eg: These are very nice TV sets is different from These TV sets are very nice in form though similar in meaning), has made me feel more self-confident in my program of guiding him to revise his English lessons for some upcoming weeks before teaching him anything new. From the beginning when sending him to learn English from my friend Miss Ha – who is experienced in teaching English to children and speaks English quite finely with correct intonation, I agreed with the teacher that Tuan needed to learn English without high speed but essentially with steady comprehensive grasp, that means, he was expected to get good skills in listening and speaking, correct pronunciation, long memory of new words, new model sentences, and correct writing too.


After about 4 months of being the only student in his class taught by Miss Ha at her home every Saturday morning, thanks to her careful guidance combined with my and his own efforts to practice regularly English at home at weekends, Tuan has made some, though still small, progress in listening, speaking and writing English.

To tell the truth, as an expert of English for many years, I always very much wish my son to learn better and better this foreign language so that he will have an useful means of communication and good for reading purpose in his future work. That’s why whenever seeing Tuan’s attitude of being less enthusiastic and sometimes even lazy in practicing speaking and listening English, I can’t but get angry with him. I usually show my worry about his laziness by shouting loudly or even scolding him. However, just a few minutes later, seeing him to seemingly repent of what he has done, hearing him speak or read English better or seeing him more eagerly type English new words on computer, I must reproach myself and rethink of my own attitude toward him. Probably I am not patient enough as a mother toward my son. I must be calmer and more reasonable to him. Tuan is only a 9-year child, not grown enough to understand fully the necessity of learning English as well as other new things. I must be more patient in explaining these to him for his gradual awareness, Especially more than once he asked me: "Do I speak correctly, Mummy ?", expressing his more serious attitude of learning, then I realized of having been too tough to him, I should have been more gentle. I must be more optimistic in my thinking too: English will be necessary but not so important for Tuan as for me because Tuan should study in a technical branch for his major future profession as we have defined quite clearly for him, that means, English will be only a bridge for him to come into scientific-technical knowledge.

This evening, Tuan will go on learning Unit 10 of Let’s Learn English Book 1 with my guidance. Some hours ago, I just completed drafting some main points of my explanation to him tonight on the new words describing the weather. In fact, I don’t like the rainy weather today, but such a weather is good for Tuan to imagine the sentence “It’s rainy in Ha Noi today. There are many clouds over there”. Tomorrow is Saturday, starting Tuan’s weekend, so I hope it will stop raining and get fine so that he can write and then we, both mother and son, can jointly say this right “It’s sunny in Ha Noi today. There are no clouds.”

I like vegetables in good combination

Formed as a custom in my small family, after some holiday feasts mainly with meat and much protein content there should be usually some lighter meals of mainly vegetables and soya curd ingredients. These can be understood as essential breaks to balance our nutrition regime and keep us fresher with more components from nature that are vegetables and fruits, Through more and more experience by ourselves and our friends around, we have known better the top necessity of vegetables which are much cheaper than meat, fish, prawns or other high-protein food items but not at all less important in our human beings’ mental and physical activities. Moreover, vegetables are surely less harmful and more helpful in many cases, especially for high-blood-pressure cardio-vascular people.

Therefore, for myself at the age 40 as beginning of ageing, I have more highly considered the balanced and reasonable proportions between milk, sugar, meat, fish, prawns etc and more vegetables and fruits, more water amount in our daily meals so as to ensure enough protein, calcium and vitamin content and simultaneously to minimize cholesterol in blood. That’s why such images as the water spinach combined with some other items in the following dishes are also appealing to me:

Have you ever tried cooking this way ? First, fry soya curd into yellow color, take them out. Then, fry some garlic and onions until they turn yellow, next put spinach into the pan, stir evenly until it becomes soft but still keeping green, next put back the soya curd in, put in soya sauce (or yellow bean sauce), add some more garlic and also ginger for more taste.









And hereunder is a special soup with freshwater mollusks and water spinach, it sounds very close to nature. The ways of cooking this soup can be various :

- First way, after deeping the fresh mollusks in water for 10 minutes and washing clean, you can boil them in water and then remain them in their shells (as in image). Next, put the spinach in and boil again, add sauce and seasoning powder and garlic for more taste.









- Another way, after cleaning fresh mollusks, you can take the filling out of the shells and discard the shells. Then cook well the mollusks together with spinach in enough water until the mollusks becomes well-done and spinach turns soft but still keeping green, next add fish sauce, seasoning powder, garlic and ginger for more taste. The sweet flavor is fine and cool, making you feel pure and healthy.









I believe you would have a good appetite with less meat and more vegetables becauce they are really delicious too. Please try these once and probably you would like to do them again !!!

Delicious "Pho Bo" - Thang's devoted care for me

I have never found a “pho bo” delicious like the one I had this morning. Though I did not know where it was bought, it was bought so timely when the weather was cold enough to feel the special delicacy and flavor of this specialty of Hanoi.











You can imagine how it happened when I woke up this morning in the feeling of cold and hunger.









Right at the same time, my husband appeared bringing with him a mess kit containing “pho bo tai chin” still hot and delicious smelling. He was so timely and psychological as he always is. He seemed to know what I preferred to eat in such a cold weather, he surely read what I was thinking that “pho” or a similar warm food was much much better for my lunch than bread or other cold fast food in such a cold monsoon and rainy weather. He knew very well what was good for my health care better than I thought of myself.

Now, sitting beside an yellow rose given me by my husband, feeling warmed in my stomach and in my heart too by my darling’s devoted care, I would like to share to all of you that my happiness is so simple but so sweet. My small happiness is happening everyday and felt deeply by me. I can say I am the happiest and luckiest woman I have known, so I am behaving to Thang so fairly as he has done to me.

Recent New Year Holiday fully enjoyable

Only until yesterday afternoon when seeing my son Tuan happily enjoying his ice-cream at the Fanny Ice-Cream Shop near Ho Guom among other children after our tour around the city centre where took place a Flower Festival on the recent New Year holidays, I just felt that I had completed my duty to him on those holidays.

Though there were many TV programs for children on this special occasion, both I and my husband still felt a bit guilty to our only son if we were lazy staying at home and did not take him to have a tour around Ho Guom – the central area of Ha Noi capital – where a flower festival was organized merrily to welcome the first spring of the new decade – the year 2010.

Only when we were happy together standing beside Ho Guom on the 3rd of January 2010, sharing with each other our fun romance of watching the beautiful fresh flowers still in good order and good display around the lake, we felt the New Year’s coming even warmer and happier.











Hope these images of ice-creams can partly enlight the joys in all of you in the New Prospective Year 2010 !!!