Drifting

What have I been doing since June 2011??

Lots has happened...... 

I have lost the desire to do stuff I used to enjoy.... 

But I am slowly creeping back.....

Very slowly but surely.......

I miss my old self........

Confident

Creative

Positive

Enthusiastic

Happy

Yes Man

My sons and I just watched 'Yes Man' on TV. Starring Jim Carey and Zooey Deschanel, about a guy who challenges himself to say "yes" to everything. We loved it because it's funny and has a very positive ending. It has already influenced Russell to be enthusiastic and he has been saying yes so far!

When I asked him to buy dinner for himself and Jonah, he said Yes without hesitation!

When I asked him to go shower, he said yes!

When I asked Jonah to throw the trash they left behind after dinner, Russell jumped in to say he'll do it!

Then he asked me if there's anything else I would like him to do. Messy bedroom? Yes, he went straight to tidy it up.

Ok, ok, you might ask so what's so special about that? It's for himself anyway right? Well, Russell has a habit of dragging his feet whenever he's told to do things. Or find excuses not to follow through... So I was rather happy about his enthusiasm until he popped the question...

"Can I play PS3?" LOL...I knew there was something up his sleeves! It's the June school holidays so I said yes. As I was walking to my room I overheard him telling Jonah that good things do happen to people who are positive. He's kind of right because of his earlier enthusiasm, it lightened my mood to say yes to his request. 

Have you been positive lately?

As if...

Last weekend, hubby and I took the boys to Tampines mall for lunch and a little shopping. At the Guardian Pharmacy, Jonah spotted something colourful at the check-out counter.

*Pls click on pix for larger image.

The boys ended up laughing so hard about the manufacturer's "silliness". Hubby and I had to try our very best to put on a straight face while the 2 of them spoke out loud. Surprisingly, the cashier didnt have any emotion on her face. I guess, it wasnt the first time kids do that in the store. What kind of things have your kids say out loud in public that they didnt realised it was awkward?

Bathrooms

So how do you make these two bathrooms look pleasant without spending too much money hacking the tiles and putting in new ones?

It would cost us $8000 to replace the tilings on the wall and floor. We were lucky to chance upon a company that used a special paint to coat the tiles and apparently will last for 8-10years. And the price? Only $2500 for two bathrooms' walls and floor. To save more cost, we decided to spray the wall tiles white and retain the original floor tiles. Spraying 2 bathroom wall tiles was only $1700. That meant we saved $6300 already!

The toilet bowls and sinks were still in very good condition and we contemplated on keeping them but the colour was not to our liking. The water heater was old too so we decided to pick something new. We went window shopping and finally found a shop at Geylang Road that was having a sale promotion. We spent about $2484 for the two bathrooms' accessories.

Labour cost for replacing and installing the toilet bowls and sinks was $300. After looking at videos online on how to install toilet bowl, Hubby felt confident that he could do it too. And he did! We had trouble with the first bowl due to our inexperience but the subsequent one was easily done :)

Hubby was amazing! He covered the unsightly drain pipings with the wooden doors from the build-in wardrobe that we dismantled. Changed all the water pipings and installed the toilet bowls, sinks, taps and the water heater pack. And then, he bought teak wood (water resistant) from the timber yard at Changi Road for $195 and made wooden decks for both bathrooms' floors to have a separation from the shower areas.

Previously, the shower area in the common bathroom was right next to the door. We just couldn't accept that and changed the position. Now it's nearer to the toilet bowl and we put in a toilet paper holder with a flap cover to prevent the paper getting wet when the boys take their shower.

We also removed the old window glass panels and spray-painted the silver grilles to white. With the measurements, we went to get customised sand blasted glass panels from the glass makers in Eunos Industrial Estate for about $40. Finally our bathrooms are ready for use :)

Inclusive of the mirrors we bought from Ikea for $28.90, Ikea towel rail and towel hangers for $28.90, we spent about $4500 on renovations and furnishing for the two bathrooms. The other stuffs like basket for toilet rolls storage, shower rod, shower curtains, glass shelves for miscellanous and dustbins were from our old place. My brother in-law told me he spent more than 10K renovating his 2 bathrooms! How much did you spent renovating yours?

My 3rd home

Finally, I am able to take a little break. The home reno was really hectic. Thanks to my super handy hubby, we managed to do 90% of the reno by ourselves. We started out with full enthusiasm about savings lots of money with my creativity and his handy-ness. He had only about one month off from work so we tried to do it as quickly and effecient as we can. As the days draws nearer to the dateline, fustrations and tiredness set in. There were some things that we had wished we hadnt done all by ourselves and some things that we realised just can't be cut short. Here's a little preview of my humble home. I'll definitely elaborate on what we did in the next few entries. And the calculations on how much we had saved!

Busy busy busy, very busy...

Happy 2011!

My days are filled with sorting, packing, clearing, cleaning, painting....I'm so so tired, my fingers, arms and feet are aching but I must perservere....Moving into my new flat soon :) Will let you in on our slow but surely progress when this busy-ness is over.

My boys helped paint the flat as well. They get better and better everyday. This was what happened the 1st time they did and it was overwhelming for my 9yr old physically.
                                  *Please click on the pic for larger image

Yea..my new teenager has new ways of thinking these days... He surprised me regularly :)

A Christmas gift for you?

I really enjoy creating comic strips at stripgenerator.com, and I would love to make a strip for you. For Christmas 2010! Just send me a short story of how you want your story to be told. It can be something funny, something touching, something interesting....No strings attached just as long as you allow me to share your strip freely. You can use it in your greeting cards, gift tags, desktop, cd cover, book cover, diary cover, scrapbook, etc....

A friend told me this story of his experience when he was a cabin crew more than a decade ago.
                                  *pls click on the pix for larger image

He made sure his passenger got more than he had asked for. Yup, he went heavy on the alcohol. And the poor passenger was knocked out for the rest of the 12 hour flight! Don't worry, he has quit long time ago....which means you will not be served by him by any chance :D

Send me an email eileen@budgetestore.com . Will accept last request on 15 Dec 2010. Hope to hear from you soon, cheers!