Guitalele

Drama Queen has always wanted to learn the ukulele.  This year, her school engaged a teacher to teach ukulele to the students on CoCo days at a fee cheaper than that charged by music schools and freelance teachers. She jumped at the opportunity and signed up for the class.  She has been pestering me for a new guitalele but I ain't going to buy her one just yet, lest she loses interest in this musical instrument. She can use Alycia's ukulele for the time being. If her interest in ukulele is still strong by next year, I shall buy her a new guitalele. Just in case you are wondering what's a guitalele, check it out at MusiciansFriend.com

End Of Final Exam

1 more day to go before Alycia and Sherilyn get to sniff the sweet whiff of freedom after 10.5 months of books, 4 major school exams and many mini tests in between exams. This exam marks their final exam for the year 2014. While the drama queen can unwind a wee bit, Alycia still needs to attend extra classes four times a week provided by her school in preparation for the UPSR exam next year. I have in mind some activities to do with the girls after their exam. I have promised Sherilyn to bring her ice-skating and Alycia to check out some fender telecaster deluxe guitars. Alycia has put her guitar at the backseat while she focused on the preparation of her final exam. Now she can bring her guitar back to the front and start strumming her favorite tunes again. I will get her to perfect a love song for her granny and grandpa who will celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary soon!

If Only We Were Wealthy

Yesterday Cass and I bumped into a friend's daughter at the lift of our condo. Her live-in nanny cum maid was accompanying her to the music school. I asked her where she was going, to which she told me that she was going to attend violin and drum class at a musician's friend  shop located at a shopping mall  about half an hour's drive from where we live. Their driver was waiting in a big MPV. My friend has a driver and bodyguard and her husband has some kind of title awarded to him. Apart from drum and violin lessons, this girl who is a year older than Cass is also learning hip hop dance with Sherilyn and attending swimming lessons. This girl and her siblings have a dozen of extra-curricular activities to attend and they are chauffeured around by their driver and bodyguard.  If only we could afford the various lessons and a driver to chauffeur the kids everywhere with a nanny to accompany my kids, I would do the same for my kids. Ah, how nice would that be  if we were wealthy!

Fond High School Memories

I have many fond memories of my years spent in high school. I have too many to list down. My most remembered and cherished memories are those spent camping with my besties in Pangkor Island (1986) and Pulau Kapas in Terengganu (1989). Also the 10-day Wilderness Adventure Camp in Lumut (1989), our first school visit to KL in 1987 and our Canteen Day in 1989. I miss those care-free and crazy days with my besties. I still keep in touch with most of them, albeit we are not as close as we used to be back then :( When we left high school back then, we should have gotten ourselves something for us to remember forever, like some custom class rings or a custom t-shirt with the year we left high-school. If I could turn back the clock, I would love to turn it back to 1987 and start re-living those years.

Early X'mas Shopping

I have a friend who likes to do her X'mas shopping after X'mas! That is when many departmental stores will have discounts and clearance sale. She will take a day's leave to charge the departmental stores having sales to stock up on presents for the next X'mas. I think this is a very good idea as the savings is substantial. Plus you do not have to join in the crazy and crowded last-minute X'mas shopping. I ought to follow what my friend does too. However, at times, I will be too busy with work and with the kids that I may not find the time to go shopping. That is when online shopping comes into place. I love shopping online and had bought from several online stores for various stuff though I own an online store. Christmas is five months away I know and today I found an awesome website that carries a large array of Christmas gifts. You can hop over and shop for dept 56 snow village to check out their range of unique gifts.

Detox

A girl in Cass' kindy really needs a detox of her body and mind from the iPad. She goes to school on most mornings crying and feeling sleepy. According to the teacher, the girl's parents are unable to control her. She is an only child, and very much loved and pampered. As they are both busy working parents, the girl is left at home with the grandparents, who uses the iPad to keep her entertained. When the iPad is taken away from her, all hell breaks loose. On most nights, she will play with the iPad till the wee hours. In the morning, she will have trouble waking up. This happened last year. I hope that by now, this girl is totally detoxed and weaned off the iPad. Some people may need an oxy detox. For electrical gadgets addiction, you can detox by killing the gadgets and engage yourself in something else.

The Guitar Teacher

Alycia's guitar teacher teaches guitar on a full-time basis. On top of teaching guitar, he is also a freelance guitarist. He gets paid to perform with his guitar at weddings. He also performs at orchestras. His voice quality is that of a singer too. He reminds me of Emil Chau, the Hong Kong born Taiwanese singer. He was once my favorite singer and actor. Whenever the guitar teacher teaches Alycia, he will sing and strum the guitar simultaneously. Luckily he does not have a Hugh Grant look. It would be very distracting to have a hunk with good looks and good voice in the house every week haha! And oh yes, the way he holds and strums his guitar with bajo sexto strings is with style too. No wonder he is married at such a young age and has a 4-year old child. He must have swept his young wife's feet off with his voice and charm years ago.

Dancing Class

One of the things on my 'To Do List' is to sign up for dancing classes. I think dancing is a good form of exercise. When you dance, your whole body moves vigorously. Running can be pretty boring at times, as with working out in the gym. But dancing is so much fun as music is involved. When Cass goes to primary school in a year's time, I will have more free time in the morning to engage myself in my hobbies. One of the things that I plan to do is to sign up for a hip hop dance class. There is a dancing school in my neighborhood that is pretty good. I heard that the teachers from that school are very good - just like the dance doctor of los angeles. My daughters like dancing as well and I can see that they can dance pretty well. When Cass gets over with her bladder issues, I am going to sign her up into a modern dance class. I know she will love it. I can't wait for that to happen.

Removing Stains From Clothes

For parents with school-going kids, I am sure you will definitely not miss out on having to deal with removing black stains from the collar of your kids' white shirt. I face this problem everyday and it is indeed a chore having to scrub the stains off the shirt collar everyday. But thanks to my most trusted spot stain remover, all I need to do is to spray the solution on the collar, let it rest for a few minutes before dumping the dirty laundry into the washing machine for a 50-minute wash and spin. For bad stains, I need to use undiluted stain remover and brush off the stains with a clothes brush.

Alycia's New Hair Cut

Today I brought Alycia for a hair cut. She had been bugging me to bring her to the hair salon since last week but I only did so after she told me that the prefectorial teacher gave the prefects an ultimatum that if anyone with hair touching the collar of the shirt  tomorrow, the hair would be snipped off by the teacher!



After the hair cut, Alycia has been fretting about how awful she looks. While I really think that the hair style suits her type of hair and her face shape, I think she is still not used to her new look. I told her jokingly that if she did not like the new hair, there is really nothing much she can do except to get some natural noriko wigs to don on while waiting for her hair to grow LOL!

Impulse Buying

I love shopping at this shop in my neighborhood that sells everything at 5 bucks but I try to refrain myself from stepping foot into this shop. Each time I enter this shop, I end up buying stuff which I do not need and overspend. This shop is a bane for those on a tight budget. Although everything is cheap, many people actually indulge in impulse buying and end up wasting money buying things that they do not really need. One time, the hubs bought a couple of stands & mounts , trays and containers and they are still unused and collecting dust in the storeroom! I have a love-hate-relationship with this shop and now only visit the shop if I have something that I absolutely need to buy.

Working Very Hard

The hubs and his team have been working at full steam for the past one week on several mega functions this week. Many of these corporate functions were Hari Raya Open House events, which involved over a thousand pax for each function. In this week also, one of his staff resigned and one of his chefs took leave. As a responsible and caring employer who did not want to over-work his other staff, he rolled up his sleeves and headed for the kitchen, helping out to cook and even to peel prawn shells! Can you imagine how many thousands of prawns he had to peel to cater for over a thousand pax?  He also carried heavy cartons of China plates, stainless steel cutleries, tables, chairs and everything that was needed to set up the buffet lines. He has over-worked himself this week and I think he must have torn some muscles in his hands. This morning, he could not even bend down to pick up his clothes or to open these to get his things out. By the way, if you are wondering what my hubs does, he runs a catering business. If you need a caterer, just give me a buzz ;)

Unsafe Country To Live In

Our country is slowly and surely earning itself a spot in the list of Most Unsafe Countries To Live In.  Lately, cases of murder, shooting, daylight robbery, kidnap, rape and the list goes have been getting very rampant. About two weeks ago, a well-known female gynecologist had had her thumb chopped off and her hand was almost severed by a mugger. The assailant must have had wanted to snatch her gold bracelet or sterling silver bracelet on her wrist. Her handbag with cash was also snatched away, in daylight robbery which almost turned fatal. Yesterday, a prominent founder of a bank was shot to death at point blank, also in broad daylight. Several months ago, my customer was slashed to death during an attempted robbery. Nothing was taken from her, only her precious life. It is getting very unsafe to walk out of our house these days and that is really sad.

No-Crayon and No-Water color Ruling

I hate it when my kids do painting with crayons and water color as this would spell w-o-r-k for me. Each time crayons are used, crayon dust would get stuck on our plastic table cloth, floor and under their finger nails too. Just the other day, rascal #2 caused a big mess on the plastic table cloth after an hour of coloring with crayons. She was coloring a Mother's Day card - project from her school teacher.  Her finger nails were spared from vigorous brushing and washing as I instructed her to wear a pair of disposable rubber gloves. But the table cloth needed washing and after a wash, the prints on the table cloth faded. It looks like I would need to go through some spandex table cloths selection to get a replacement table cloth. I have previously imposed a NO-crayon and NO-water color rule in the house but it seems quite impossible to enforce this ruling when the kids keep getting art homework from their teachers, sigh!

Background Checks

One of the tasks that I had to do when I was working as a Human Resources Officer at a bank was to perform background checks on prospective employees. The job entailed calling the prospective employee's former employer to ask about his or her employment track record and to perform a CTC check. The task was time consuming as many of the previous employers needed time to retrieve the personal files (some files would had already been sent to a ‘cold storage’) and some of the employers were not cooperative. If you work in a HR Department, you can check background checks now from the internet at the convenience of your mouse. How very convenient!

Our Former Live-In Helper

Cass missed our former live-in helper dearly when she left about 8 months ago and she still misses her ‘kakak’. Occasionally, she would tell me that she still misses ‘kakak’. During Chinese New Year two months ago, we received a surprise long distance call from ‘kakak’. It was good to hear her voice again. If she ever tells us that she wants to return to work for us, I think I would receive her with open arms! Though she had done many things that infuriated us for the past 4.5 years, I have forgiven her. We are all but human beings who are very prone to making mistakes. One time, when Cass was about a year old, ‘kakak’ gave Cass a pencil with sharp pencil lead along with some tiny disc springs to play with when I had gone jogging in the morning. When I came home and saw carbon stains on Cass’ mouth (I reckoned that she had put the pencil into her mouth to chew), I was so furious and almost wanted to strangle her! But I soon cooled down. This was just one of the many blood-boiling incidents that she had done. She had done many foolish things to annoy us but I have forgiven her.

An Extraordinary Man

I never knew what humidors were until I worked for a boss who was a chain cigar smoker. I was marveled when he showed me the humidor with all his collection of luxury cigars. I was even more awestruck when he told me that I had to add water into the humidor to keep the cigars moist. He had opened my eyes to many things and I had learned a lot from this man with an extraordinary mind and intelligence. Unfortunately this great man’s life had to come to an abrupt end when he succumbed to the Big C.

Solid Foundation

Having a good, solid foundation in work management and office management is very important. Once these skills are at your finger tips, you can run a small scale business efficiently. I am thankful that I had very good exposure to these skills in my 8 years of experience working in the HR Department of a large bank. I had superiors who were perfectionist and they were very fastidious in their work. They managed to bring out the best in me. With these very useful skills and experience that I have, I do not even need order management workflow to help me run my home-based online store business.

Century Old Church

I used to go to an old church with my parents in my hometown when I was young. My parents are still regular church goers at this old church. The church has no air-conditioning but only fitted with wall fans on each pew. I remember sweating profusely while praying fervently on my knees on hot evenings and got bitten by mozzies while listening to the sermon while being seated on the church furniture chairs. Nonetheless, I feel very at peace whenever I go to this church. And I still prefer traditional churches and singing old hymns compared to modern ones with loud bands.

My hubby The Handyman

My kids call their daddy Handy Manny, after the cartoon character. That’s because their daddy is indeed one handyman who can fix and install just about anything from changing a car tire to a ranger tire, fixing leakages, repairing the house, installing very complicated furniture with a thousand parts from scratch and the list goes. Not only is he an adept handyman, he has passion fixing things too. I always wonder why he doesn't have the patience to wait for me to shop for just 1 hour but has absolutely no complaints spending half a day to fix and instal a piece of furniture!