Starbucks Coffee

At the mention of Starbucks, one would think of coffee beans, drip brewed coffee, espresso, cappuccinos and all those mouth-watery brewed beverages that's hot, frosty and richly blended! Any younger generations in today's world would know what Starbucks is about, even to the very remote corner of world!

I am one person who enjoys having relaxing time at Starbucks outlets. I love the ambient of these outlets. The sweet sound of melodies swaying softly and the smell of aromatic roasted coffee beans and chocolate cookies, and the good taste of baked cheese and chocolate cakes makes this place feels like home to me. Hmmm, I really really love those good feelings!

It is not difficult to find these outlets at where I live and work. At our office premises, there is one outlet just next to our Cafeteria and another is located at Bintang Plaza shopping complex. So, no problem in finding a place to wind down and stretch out plus also stretching the budget a little!

Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: [3]; SEHK: 4337) is a dominant multinational coffeehouse chain based in the United States. Named after the first mate in the novel Moby-Dick, Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world,[1] with 7,521 company-owned and 5,647 licensed stores in 40 countries, making a total of 13,168 stores worldwide.[2] Starbucks sells drip brewed coffee, espresso-based hot drinks, other hot and cold drinks, snacks and items such as mugs and coffee beans. Through its Starbucks Entertainment division and Hear Music brand, the company has ventured beyond refreshments into books, music, and film. Many of these products are seasonal or specific to the locality of the store. Starbucks brand ice cream and coffee are also sold at grocery stores.
From its founding in Seattle, Washington, as a local coffee bean roaster and retailer, Starbucks has expanded rapidly. In the 1990s, the company was opening a new store every workday, a pace that continued into the 2000s. Domestic growth has since slowed down, though the company continues to expand in foreign markets and is opening 7 stores a day worldwide. The first location outside of the U.S. and Canada was established in 1996, and they now constitute almost one third of Starbucks' stores.[3]
As of February 2007, Starbucks had 7,521 company-owned outlets worldwide: 6,010 of them in the United States and 1,511 in other countries and U.S. territories. In addition, the company has 5,647 joint-venture and licensed outlets, 3,391 of them in the United States and 2,256 in other countries and U.S. territories. This brings the total locations (as of February 2007) to 13,168 worldwide.[2] Starbucks can be found in many popular grocery chains in the U.S. and Canada, as well as in many airports.
Starbucks' corporate headquarters are in Seattle, Washington, United States. As of March 2007, the members of the company's board of directors

are Howard Schultz (Chair), Jim Donald, Barbara Bass, Howard Behar, Bill Bradley, Mellody Hobson, Olden Lee, James Shennan, Jr., Javier Teruel, Myron Ullman, III, and Craig Weatherup.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks

"Delight yourself in the surprises of today."

What are the tallest towers nearest to you that you could see while lying down?

Remember I blogged about the jokes and riddles I once had with my nieces? At the last Gawai celebration, they found the answer to the riddle I dared them. They answered without even thinking but by laughing loudly and said "Aunty, you are not smart enough and that riddle is so easy to answer! Its breasts! He..he..he...". So I lose to them that evening. Nevertheless our dinner went well and was merry. :)

Quilting Like There's No Tomorrow Part 3

Where has the quilting time gone these two weeks? Since I last posted about the progress of the baby quilt I am making for my new grandson, I haven’t done any quilting. Why is that? On weekdays I am at work. On weekends and in the evening I am home most of the time and I have been kept busy baby-sitting and nursing my grandchildren, Nigel and Nicole who were both down with flu, fever and sore throat. Nigel didn’t go to school since last week because he will get nauseated after taking any kind of food or drinks. He lost his appetite for food and he doesn’t want to drink his favorite malt drinks like "Horlick" or "Milo". Nicole’s appetite is just okay except that she took smaller portions of her meal. Both of them lost weight a little and I could see how unhappy they both were from the mirror of their eyes! Thank God, Nigel’s’ asthma bout was at bay, otherwise what a miserable week my dear Nigel would have.

Then, came the Holy Easter Week starting with Palm Sunday and the whole week before Easter was the Daily Evening Mass for Station of the Cross. In that week, Trevor (the Little Sheriff), my new grandson caught the same illness as his cousins. There I go again busy with attending to the health of my dear ones.

The weather has been fair, rather hot and humid in the day and occasional rain in the evening. It would be just nice to stay out in the garden and pull the weeds from the flower gardens and pots. Alas! So much to do with so little time! :(

By night time, as I retired, I somehow didn’t sleep well. I would be thinking of my unfinished baby quilt and the quilts tops piled up in the cabinet and the many other things I want to do all these while. There's the stamp and coins collections and pictures of family and friends that are yet to be sorted out and arranged in their respective albums. My thoughts would be endless throughout the night, until I am too tired to even realised when sleep actually put me to bed!

I do feel self-pity sometimes because I am not able to enjoy the freedom of not being disturb whenever I want to do anything that interest me. Much has changed and I got to divide my time between my interests and my family. Naturally, the family will come first.

However, I am hoping that by the next two weeks, Trevor’s baby quilt would see some improvement and ready for him to have to keep warm. At least by accomplishing this one single task, I will be very happy. I still believe in not giving up hope.

~The plans I have for you are good, to give you a future and a hope.~ Jeremiah 29:11

Quilting Like There's No Tomorrow Part 2

The Quilt Story continues….

I've been living in a perpetual state of guilt that I haven't been able to finish most of the stacks of quilt tops stored in my cabinet. I’ve tried and I really have but from the look of it all, the speed is ever so slow.

However, I promised myself to make a baby quilt for my new grandson, Trevor Kent, and I which I did and am so happy to have at least the quilt top assembled and machine-pieced. For the quilt’s center, I used a block with patchwork of a baby crawling, which I made way back in October 2003. Voila! The quilt looks vibrant and wonderful! I have a big smile both on my face and in my heart!

My DIL was delighted to see the quilt top completed and looking forward to see the finish result! You see I am so touch to see how happy my DIL is with this very special quilt made for her first born. This quilt is made with lots and lots of love and only grandparents who dotingly love their grandchildren wold know what that words mean.

Now, the next task is the process to put on the batting and backing and sewing in the motifs. Well, I am going to sew a very simple motif so as to ease myself from spending too much time working on just one quilt. Remember, I said earlier on that I have stacks of quilt tops squeezed inside my cabinet! LOL!

There goes Part 2 of the quilt story and watch out for Part 3 that will be shared with all here soon. Smile.

Quilting Like There's No Tomorrow

Howdy! I have been amazed at how busy I had been lately. In December 2006, there was Christmas preparations done and Christmas Day was celebrated with a low key then. My third grandchild’s early arrival was not in our 2006 plan, so we were all caught unprepared. My daughter in law’s due date was supposed to be in February this year but seemed that was some arithmetic error somewhere.

Well, December last year was celebrated with both happiness and sadness. The happy and sad events were that two little angels was born in the festive season of Christmas but one of them passed on to have Christmas with angels and saints in God’s beautiful heaven.

Then came the Chinese Lunar Year of the Pig (my Chinese Zodiac Year) and the activities that kept me busy (besides the usual routines, of course) was taking our family for visiting dear friends who invited us to their “open-house”. Usually like any festive seasons celebrated throughout Malaysia, sumptuous Malaysian cuisines and cookies and beverages are served. On Chinese New Year, my young nieces and grandchildren looked forward to receiving “ang pow” from the host of each celebrant. Besides visiting, my grandchildren and I were chasing after the Lion Dance performances around town! See, the New Year started with lots of interesting events and basically I could hardly find the time to ever continue with my interests and hobbies like gardening, quilting and sorting out boxes of stamp and coins collections.

It saddened me to see all those piles of unfinished quilt blocks, tops, scraps and stitchery blocks lying on the quilting table. Everyday I will be looking at the same sight again and again. J Guess I didn’t think about getting them finished once the top is finished. Heck!

Well, I have to admit that having several quilt tops (and by that I mean between 10 queen sizes and 25 small) quilt projects going at once I can pick and choose what I am in the mood for on any particular day!

I promised myself last year that beginning year 2007, I must spend time on my quilt works and get at as many small quilts completed before Christmas this year. Now that job did not start immediately any less! Duh! What is wrong with me? Am I having a terrible time management or is time managing me instead? I am itching to get my hands on those quilts since then but seems that these fingers are getting shorter and the person is getting lazier.

I must not let whatever the reasons maybe let me down. So, today I started with cutting and piecing blocks (yet again, more UFOs) for my new grandson. The story about this baby quilt continues and I will share with you the end story soon (hopefully). This quilt got to be finished so I can give it away as a gift at my grandson’s baptism day.

Till then, happy quilting to all quilters and to all the hobbyists out there enjoy whatever you are doing. God bless and wishing you and yours a Happy Lent Season.

Netball

The company I work for is celebrating it's mega work-life-balance activities and this year will be organising a series of outdoor and indoor games in the run-up to April's Mega WHPH. Eligible staffs are encouraged to participate, both in the run activities as well as during the mega event in April. The "heat" of most of the event has started as early as March and I am participating in the netball game. Netball is not a foreign game to me but a new sport for me for the reason that I have never ever play netball before in my life! Due to the shortage of players to form a team in our department, I was invited and I voted myself voluntarily as "reserve". Well, my team members believe I could do better than as a reserve player so they put me as "centre" and/or "wing defense" player.

Prior to the BIG Day, we learn more about the game rules; we practised, keep fit and held a few friendly game with other teams. Our first game was held on Friday evening 9th March at the Petroleum Recreation Club's netball field in Lutong. We lose in our first game but we won on another, which was held on Friday evening 16th March at the Basketball court of the same club.

Now we are looking forward to more competitions lined up for the next few weeks until April 2007.

The above picture was taken during our first game. Those ladies wearing yellow bibs are my team members and see how aggressive they all are! LOL!