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!

Honesty, the best policy?

This happened earlier this year when the primary threes are choosing their CCAs for the year. Being unathlete Jonah avoided the sports. Uniformed group was too much commitment just in case he didnt enjoy it in the midst of it so he opted for clubs. The comic below tells the rest of the story....
                                                        *pls click on the pix for larger image



Poor baby was too afraid to tell the truth so I coaxed him into writing how will the Gradening Club benefits him instead. After attending almost a year of gardening, he has learn to pull out weeds, prepare a pot for planting chili seeds (yes, the chilli plant is still alive seating in our corridor :)), attempted many tasks like leaf pressing, make a dried seeds collections, poster, making a silly poem about plants, he was awarded a Young Botanist Badge organised by the Science Centre Singapore!

So I asked him if he would like to switched to another club next year and he said he's happy to stick to this one :)

Daddy Long Legs

Our bookshelves are bursting with books! It was time for me to clear some but I found it hard to lose some of them like this one by Jean Webster.

I won this in 2nd prize for my school's geography quiz in the secondary one category back in 1982! Yes, truly a long long time ago :) I left the other books lying on the floor and went into reading this one all over again. Typical story that teenage girls would love and it tickled me all over again. I felt like a teenager during that couple of hours reading by the terapin's pond. It would be nice to be able to share it with a daughter, I guess, I'll have to wait for a grand-daughter in the future. The book is so old and yellow already, actually more brown than yellow.....I hope it won't fall apart when the time comes.

Do you have a book that is sentimental to you?

Sex and the Kiddy

Yesterday I attended the third lesson in the Parent Facilitator Course. It's a 40 hour training for parent volunteers which empower us to facilitate the running of SFE programmes and the formation of parent support groups. It's subsidised by MCYS and module 1 covers topics like family life cycle, developement stages of tweenies, how marriage can affect parenting, challenges of teenagers and family wellness. I learn something new about parenting and my children on every lesson. Yesterday we touched on a topic most parents avoid discussing with their children. Yes, it's about sex and not 'that thing'! LOL....As for me, I'm pretty comfortable talking about it with my 2 boys since I started reading them books about where do babies come from when they were just toddlers. "Mummy laid an egg" by Babette Cole is one of my favourite. It's funny, factual and very frank.

Whenever the boys ask any questions concerning sex, hubby and I would try to answer them as honest and factual as possible. I remembered when I was in preschool, I asked my mom about how did I come out from her tummy  and she said through her armpit! That led to another question of how was that possible and she said she had actually found me in the toilet bowl! I knew she was kidding because she was giggling but it puzzled me for the longest time. What kind of other silly answers did your parents give you when you were young?

But I guess some questions are hard to answer like this one from Russell when he was 10.
                                 *Pls click on the pix for larger image

Elder Wise

I respect my mom-in-law. She's great at time management and is a fabulous cook. She could babysit 2 toddlers, clean her home and make 3 warm meals a day for her family of 5. She could even find the time to read the papers and scrutinise the property market. Through her encouragement, savings and hard work of moving from a HDB  flat to a HUDC apartment to a terrace house, both my parents-in-law eventually sold their landed property to become millionaires and now living happily in an EA flat with little to worried about. She is a wonderful mom-in-law and we get along very well. Although I respect her a lot, there are times when she's a tad old fashioned in her thinking, well to me at least....

So when she whipped out this advise on how to be a good housewife, I thought it was joke until I heard my hubby mentioned a conversation they had on a guys' night out 2 days ago. I was stumped and my mom-in-law's words slammed into my head at that point. The sequence of the actual event wasn't really like that in the comic below but the words are real.
                                  *Click on the pix for larger image

LOL! Well, my fellow homemakers, how about you? Do you try to finish your chores before the hubby is home or do you start only when he gets home? Maybe I shall surf Bloggers until hubby gets home before I start sweeping and mopping that darn sticky floor! hee...

It's a Ferrari or something!

Last Sunday, I went to pick Russell and his 3 friends up from their Junior Youth Group meeting. It was my turn to send the boys home and I was driving my van. This was the conversation they had....

                                  *Click on the pix for bigger image

Of course it's not a Ferrari! LOL! Gotta love kids : D

He's so going to Swenson's

Couple of months back, I received a parent letter from school requesting that the Primary 3 children to take an International Competitions and Assessments for School (ICAS) conducted by Educational Assessment Australia, UNSW Global Pty Limited.. I sent an email to Jonah's form teacher to inquire if it was necessary to put the kids through another 'exam'. He explained that the kids would enjoy the challenge as the questions would be very interesting. Jonah said he would like to try it out so I consented. Later on, another letter was sent out to parents to remind us not to give undue stress to our kids for this test so I just let Jonah take his test without any kind of 'training'. In fact I'd totally forgotten about it until he came home one afternoon telling me about the test. He said the Science paper was pretty tough.

Yesterday, he came home from school looking very tired after Chinese remedial class and the Health & Fitness program. He flopped on the sofa for awhile before telling me excitedly about his day. The children received their results for the Science performance. The results were graded as Participation, Credit, Distinction and High Distinction. And he recieved a Certificate of Distinction! In the result's letter, it stated that his score was in the top 11% of Primary 3 Participants in Singapore. WOW! Top 11%!

Needless to say, we are very proud of his achievement. He was smiling from ear to ear and did a little jig when I said he was so going to Swenson's! LOL! Ice-cream is his favourite and he loves eating at Swenson's, which we go only on such special occasion.

I've also framed up the Certificate and put it in our glass shelf  'Hall of Fame'. Every year he received a little laminated certificate of encouragement from his form teachers for doing well in his school's exams. Most times, he's nonchalent about it but this time, I can see he is very happy with this little achievement. It's a joy to watch him glow in confidence :)

My kind of Therapy

Most people enjoy clothing shopping but I prefer browsing in furnishing stores. I can spent hours looking at stuff and it's therapy for me. My all time favourite place is IKEA. It's very casual, no one follows me around the store and yet I can always find someone to help me when I need it. I get to touch and test out almost everything I see. Then when I get tired or hungry, there's a cafe with yummy Swedish meatballs and free coffee or tea. I was delighted when IKEA opened a branch in Tampines. It's just 5 minutes drive from my home and parking is free because of its location. The products are priced reasonably well and I love their slogan, "You don't have to be rich to be clever." .

Every year, every household in Singapore will receive their latest catalogue. Just a couple of days ago, we received our 2011 catalogue. So I've been spending a couple of minutes here and a half an hour there flipping through it. I enjoy looking at their simple designs and I keep every issue. Yes, I do take them out once in a while to get inspiration one way or another. Did you know that I even have their catalogue dated 1988?

Are you an IKEA fan too?

My Water Babies

The first time I took Russell to the pool was when he was just 6 months old. I could tell that he loved it because he was splashing and kicking happily sitting in his floatie. We took him to our friends' private pool  at least once a month. Pat and Rodney have two boys and they love playing with Russell eventhough they were a few years older.

Then one day I chanced upon a book; Water Baby: A First Fun Book of Water Skills by Lauren Heston. It has lots of beautiful pixs of babies swimming and their eyes were opened wide in the water! I was fascinated and bought it. It has clear guides and steps on teaching your babies to hold their breadth automatically before dipping their heads in the water and how we can help them gain confident and freedom swimming on their own. After reading it I was so excited because instead of just dipping in the pool and lazing around watching Russell play, I could actually do something useful and fun.

Well, it was fun indeed. Especially watching him enjoy our 'lessons'. When he was about 18mths old, we bought an underwater disposable camera and took precious pixs of him in the water.

Unfortunately, we didn't take the same kind of photos of Jonah. But Jonah is a 'dugong'. He can sit in the pool daydream all day if I allow him to. He loves the weightlessness and cool feeling that the water gives. He enjoys sitting in the pool, jaccuzzi, the inflatable wading pool, in the ocean by the beach and even tried to cover the shower room drain with a cup to fill it up with water. If we have a bath tub, I bet he'll want to sit in it all day long.

This photo was taken when Russell was 10 and Jonah was 7. They love dipping in the pool so much they won't get up until their palms are all wrinkled and pale as ghosts!

Reading

I love to read. But it didn't start till I was 11years old.

My first book was by Enid Bryton given to me at age 10 by my cousin Doreen and I fell asleep after the first page. LOL...in fact I had phobia looking at Enid Bryton's books after that!

When I was 11, I went to live with my brother and granny in her employers home. There was a wicker shelf filled with their older boys' old and forgotten comics and storybooks in our bedroom. The room was very small and the books are always in my face so I picked them up to read when I had nothing to do. That was it, I was hooked. I started borrowing classic stories and Nancy Drew's collection from school.

When I became a teenager, I giggled over paperback love stories. I was lucky that granny's employer has a daughter just 2 years my senior. We were 2 giggling teenage girls who were nuts over the paperbacks. She received generous amount of pocket money from her dad each week so I got to read the books for free after she was done.

But after high school, comics became my thing. The Adventures of Asterix were my favourite and I hunted down every series at Bras Basah Complex. There used to be many 2nd hand bookstores there but the number has dwindled down to maybe 2 or 3 now. Garfield comics were my favourite too. I could read the comics over and over again and still laugh every time!

When I was a flight attendant, I had lots of time in my hands when I was cooped up in the hotel of a foreign land with eyes that could not sleep due to jet lag. I would spend my time reading fictions and non fictions alike. When I read, I feel totally absorb in it and sometimes laugh aloud or cry softly. I can feel intense, excitement or relief as the story goes. And I enjoy being in my own world while reading.

My boys have been reading since they were born. From Eric Carle to Eric Hill to Todd Par and Roger Hargreaves when they were babies and toddlers. I used to pick books for them at the stores or library but now they pick their own. They particularly enjoy informative and stories with big dose of humour in them. Unlike me, they enjoy Enid Bryton's series by the way! They also enjoy my Garfied comics and Asterix Adventures. At 9 and 11, they've read so many many books between them. Recently, Russell received a gift from his school's library for being one of the highest book borrowers in school.

The boys would borrow books from school with each other on their minds! How cute is that?! They would tell each other excitedly about their finds and how they know that the other brother would love them too :)

Since becoming a parent, I enjoy reading inspirational, motivational and self help books. I've been introduced to The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill a month ago and it inspired me to teach my kids what I've learned from the book. It's a very thick book and it has 15 sest of laws that everyone should know and learn. And these laws will be very effective in helping anyone to be successful in whatever the person wants to become.

What are you reading now?

I'm a lucky girl

It's not any special day but over the weekends, dear hubby made breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oh, how I love him for that :)

Cooking is not something I enjoy. I learn to make omelete and instant noodles when I was 9. My cousin taught me that in case no one was home to make lunch or dinner. She also taught me how to cook rice and my main duty was to pluck the roots off the beansprouts every weekend and I hated it! I cringed every time I see her buy beansprouts from the wet market.

When I was living with my granny, she was chief cook. The only time she ask me to help in the kitchen was to wash the dishes, clean the stove or pound the chillies, dried shrimps ( I hated pounding). She's a great cook by the way. I love her 'loh bak'(soya pork stew), 'mi hoon kueh' (flour dough soup) and 'mi suah teng'(rice noodle soup) and many, many more.

Later when I moved in with my Uncle's family, I realised how lucky I was to have granny in charged of the kitchen before. Uncle's wife was not very good when it comes to cooking. They are mostly very bland.

And then I met my dear hubby. We were 18 and I was invited to his mom's delicious home cooked food very often. It was in his parent's home that I learn how to prepare more ingredients and a little more cooking skills. My mom-in-law is not only an incredibly good cook but also a very patient teacher. Alas, I do not have the patient nor talent in that area but managed to learn the very basic stuff. I'm just lucky dear hubby inherited his mom's talent and has the passion to whip up great tasting dishes every now and then.

I cook because everyone at home has to eat. Dear hubby cooks because he is inspired. The boys and I are very lucky indeed :) We get to eat all types of cuisine gourmet meals right in our home.

Even breakfast can be special in our home, like having the 'Toad-in-the-Hole'. BTW, it didn't only looked good but also tasted so, so, so fabulously yummy!

Recycle your Tank Tops

I was going through my clothes in the wardrobe and weeded out some short tank tops. Once upon a time when my tummy was still flat, I loved them. Now, the extra ' fatties' flopped out when I put them on and it's kind of obscene to me wearing them at my age. They are still in good conditions and I can't bear to throw them away. And then suddenly, an idea hatched and I became obsessed in turning them into bags :)

1) First remove tag from old tank top.

2) Turn top inside out and line the 2 sides together. Pin the bottoms together on the dotted line.

3)  Sew straight through the bottom.

4) Turn it right way out and ta-da, you've got a new casual hand bag!

You can add a brooch or sew an applique of your choice on it for a different look.

I've turned 2 more tank tops into bags.

Try it, it's SO easy!

Teacher vs Russell

I've been busy with volunteer work in the boys' school again. I help out with the weekly Math Mom and Learning Mentor programs. I enjoy motivating the children and watching them improve academically and emotionally. I also help out in ad hoc programs like chaperoning on excursions and manning the booths during Chinese New Year period and will be helping out with Racial Harmony Week next.

I started volunteering when Russell was in primary one. His teacher gave the class a form each for their parents to fill up if anyone of us wanted to be parent volunteers. Russell was excited at the idea of me getting involved and I thought maybe it would helped me get to know the school and teachers better. Whenever we were in school together, Russell would not fail to tell his friends (whoever we walked pass) and teachers that I'm his mom and I'm a Parent Volunteer! LOL...so cute right?! I know most of his teachers pretty well and they gave me feedback very often too.

I stopped volunteering when I started working part-time in the children's library across the road from my home. The teachers and I communicated less and trouble started brewing during Russell's Chinese lessons. When he was in primary 2, he had weekly Chinese spelling test. He was supposed to learn about 8 -12 new characters each week. There was a time when he told me there weren't any spelling test after school on test days. And that went on for about 2 weeks. On the 3rd week, I was waiting at the school gate for him when I bumped into his classmate. I told him how lucky he was for not having spelling test for so many weeks. He looked at me with a puzzled face and told me they had Chinese spelling test every week! I was shocked and surprised that the Chinese teacher didn't inform me why Russell hadn't been doing his tests. I met up with her the next day and she told me why she stopped demanding work from my defiant boy.                                   *Pls click on pix for larger image.

He really scare his teacher with that crazy move! Russell feels embarrassed about his action now when I retell this story. But it made Jonah laugh whenever he remembers it.

School Day's Blues

The June school holidays is gone! Waking up before sunrise has resumed for me and the boys today. Jonah was struggling to get up this morning. Hubby who is the night owl has turned the whole family into nocturnal creatures and we didn't wake up till after 10 am during the holidays. From tonight, the boys are going to bed early again :) But I know they will still struggle to wake up the next morning....as usual....

                                  * Pls click on the pix for larger image

Why is it that the boys are up and about at 6.30am on the weekend but struggle to wake up on school days! I asked the boys this same question when their chatters woke me one beautiful Sunday morning and their replies were, "I don't know mom, I just wake up and can't go back to sleep."

Maybe the thought of schoolwork makes them tired but a whole day of fun ahead keep them excited. I guess I can't blame them because I remembered those days, feeling really tired the moment I changed into my flight attendant's uniform and wished I didn't have to work, LOL!