Archive for January, 2008

The popular Better Chinese Calanders are back on this year 2008 the Year of the Rat. Each month is colorfully illustrated with the major holidays and events according to the Chinese and American schedules. Its a great way to keep track of upcoming Chinese Festivals. Chinese Festivals are illustrated and explained in the calendar making it a great way for kids to learn Chinese Cultures and events.And whats even better is there is now an ongoing Better Chinese promotion. From now until Feb 29, 2008 you will receive this Better Chinese World Calender (worth $12.95) Free if you spend $65 or more at www.BetterChinese.com.

Haven’t heard of Better Chinese? Its a great site for kids to learn Chinese. You can check out the free online trial. I did and now I’m hooked or rather my kids are.

During Chinese New Year, I just gotta have my….

• bak kua (barbequeued meat)
• kuih bangkit (Melt in the mouth cookie)
• kuih kapit (Love Letters)
• toh tau (peanuts)
• kam (mandarin oranges)
• keropok (prawn crackers)
• my aunt’s chai bui (sweet and sour soup made from leftover vegetables and meats)

Well, those are my staples during the festival but of course there’s lots lots lots more, so how to diet? Thats it!

I now declare my diet officially postponed till after the Chinese New Year festival. Don’t read my blog. I’m a bad influence. Hehehe. As it is my “L” sized Chinese New Year Cheongsum threatens to split at the seams. After the Chinese New Year, it probablly will!

Whats your Chinese New Year food staples? Those that you can’t do without?

I was supposed to get my pap smear and dental appointments out of the way last year. Well, I managed to get myself to the dentist chair but the pap smear appointment was delayed because the timing wasn’t right.

Anyway, I finally got it out of the way. Took half a day. No, not the Pap Smear. That took a minute but the wait to get it done took half a day. The gynae discovered two ovarian cyst and a lump on my left breast. Hmm…..

She said that the ovarian cyst could be due to what she called a fertile period cyst (which will go away after ovulation), early ovarian cancer or something else which I can’t remember. According to her a cyst for any of these 3 reasons ( the third which I can’t remember now, the long wait must have numbed my brains) look exactly the same. She said that I could go back during a menstruation period to make sure that its gone and then we can be sure that its just a fertile period cyst if thats what it is.

She said that I should monitor the lump on the left breast. Hmm… My mum died of cervical or ovarian cancer (I’m not sure which as I was too young at the time) and my aunt (father’s side) is a breast cancer survivor. My aunt is incredible. She used to drive herself for a chemotherapy then drive straight to work immediately afterwards and no one knew what she was going through. My aunt owns a hardware shop and she said that she had to keep quiet about her condition or else she would no longer get goods on credit. She is an amazing lady.

So now with the pap smear out of the way, its just the results which I hope will be fine like last year. Enough scary thoughts on a Monday morning, I shall now turn my thoughts to something else like spring cleaning for Chinese New Year for example. Theres lots and lots to be done. I can’t decide whether I want to do spot cleaning (room by room) or clean only windows, only fans etc. But first, I’ve got to go and do my exercises.

I remember when we were dating he used to insist hint that I dress in a certain manner. (Translates : High heels and body hugging dresses).

After he got me and even before we were married, his preference for my dressing changed to relaxed. All of a sudden he preferred me to dress down rather than dress up.(Translates: Bermuda shorts, pants, shirts, sneakers.) 

Now that we are married, I don’t think he notices what I wear or even cares. (Translates: Thats married life!)

I’m curious. Are all men like these? Gals, does he prefer you to …..

1. Dress up?
2. Dress down?
3. Don’t care?

And what is YOUR own preference? Do you dress for him or for yourself? Do you prefer to dress up or otherwise?

Guys, Do you prefer your ladies to…..

1. Dress Up (Translates: Dress Sexily)
2. Dress Down (Translates: Cover Up)
3. Don’t Care? (No need translation)

Hubby’s birthday is approaching and so the unimaginative me went and ordered some more comics for him just like last year. They arrived in a box the other day. The kids were very excited when I told them that the box is a surprise birthday present for daddy.

So we wrapped it up together and I swore them to secrecy after we found a good hiding place for it. Even the 3 year old chipped in “Maybe we’ll hide it in Kong Kong’s room. Its somewhere different.” he said. I was surprised at his clever suggestion. “No, no.” says the 5 year old “Daddy goes in there sometimes to check that everything is ok.” I was surprised about how observant she is. In the end we hid it in another box in our bedroom cupboard.

“Remember, don’t tell daddy about it.” I said.

When daddy came home……

“Daddy, daddy, daddy, there is a surprise present for you!”

Daddy comes to me laughing. “Hahaha. I got surprise birthday present ah. The kids told me.”

When I asked them about it they innocently said. “But we didn’t tell daddy where we hid it or that it is his kungfu kungfu book which he reads in the toilet.”

Lol! Yes, they went on and on and on about his surprise, telling him all about it without revealing what it was but of course hubby already knew……

Next year, I better think of something else. Hahaha.

Mine is almost done. Accept for food stuff that is. But I’ve got the new clothing and decorations. I didn’t want to rush with the mad crowd so I shopped very very early in a nice relaxed manner taking my own sweet time. Haha. Thats the good part. No rushing. The bad part is there is no Angpow packets or other goodies to collect. And the mood isn’t really there yet.

Still that is a small trade-off compared to walking around with stressed, tired, grouchy and whiny kids and trying to push little shoes into uncooperative feet, or persuading the kids that clothes are reallly much more fun to shop for than toys and oh not forgetting those long long long queues to try clothes and those long long long queues to pay.

So, yes, I’m done with my shopping. Now its just the cleaning. Now that the fun part is over, the hard part has just begun. But lets look at the bright side. Perhaps all the exercise that comes with spring cleaning the house will make me fit into that “L” sized cheongsum I bought. And no, I never made it for my lose 5 pounds in 5 months to fit into a “M”. BOO HOO HOO. And Chinese New Year is coming and that means food glorious food, instead of losing 5 pounds in 5 months, I’ll probably gain 5 pounds in 5 weeks. HELP!

During the end of last year as we were shopping for Christmas gifts, we got ourselves a voucher which entitled me to a make-up and photo session. “You only have to pay RM30 for a full-blown A4 sized photo”, they said. So hubby nudge nudge me and said “You want to try ah” and thats what led me to sit in the middle of the shopping mall and have my face all made up and then put on silly looking faux fur tops, grin and pose for all the shoppers to see. But nothing much to see, only an old aunty trying to capture the essense of youth again. Hahaha.

After the silly posing session, came the interesting photo touch-up session. “Can you make her look 20 years younger ah?” my husband asked and later on “Not enough, maybe another 10 years?” “Can you make her teeth whiter?” *kicks Mr MG* We watch the man magically erase all the lines and other blemishes away on the PC. Wuah. Shioknya.

After that came payment time. We took out our RM30 but wait a minute! “Ma’am, Sir, if you pay RM120 only, you get to keep the software plus have 4 A4 sized photos instead of one. You want anot?” Hmmm it was certainly tempting to have more flawless looking pictures of myself around but err where would I put 4 A4 sized pics of myself ler so we declined. “No? Well, then how about having 3 small sized photos in a little album plus the software. Only RM90.” Still tempting but I declined since I don’t have three boyfriends to give the photos to. “Still no? Well then how about a frame for your photo. We’ll laminate the photo for you before framing. Only RM70.” A tad bit expensive but we needed a frame for it anyway so…….

And that my friend is the price of Vanity. Our free voucher turned out to be daylight robbery. There is no such thing as a free lunch. And free vouchers are a con job to get you to spend more and more and MORE! Always read the fine print. It usually forbids you from buying the things that you really want and the expiry date usually runs out pretty quickly so you’d want to hurry up and spend again.

So, now that you all know how vain I am, would you be kind enough to hop over my other blog and Vote for me, please?

Good finds must be shared right? So, today I’m sharing a Great Discovery: $ 8 Zenni Optical Rx Eyeglassess. Yup! You read that correctly. Its single vision prescription eyewear starting from as low as $8. The eyeglasses comes complete with frames and quality hard eyeglass case. There is a great selection of frames to choose from. They are thin and light with anti-scratch coating and full UV protection plus lens edge polishing and beveling. This online eyeglass store is worthwhile to browse around if you are looking for eyeglasses that is stylish yet not expensive.

Yesterday I went to the Pavillion for the first time. They were having Chinese acrobatic dances at the stage and the red flowers decoration was up. The Chinese New Year mood is here!

I must say that the fitting rooms at the Parkson, Pavillion are really big which is the way it should be IMO. Usually the fitting rooms are so small that you would have to squeeze yourself like a contortionist just to close the door. I think that the queues outside fitting rooms would be shorter if you made the fitting rooms larger because usually people shop in groups and they like to try in groups to give each other comments. (I don’t know about men but thats what women usually do). Otherwise, everyone has to queue a mile long then come out and I comment on your outfit and you comment on mine and repeat making the queue longer and longer and annoying everyone else in the queue.

Anyway, back to the Parkson fitting room. It had an armchair, a table and a three way mirror (if thats what you call it). The two sides can be moved about (as discovered by my two kids). It could easily fit in my family of four and more. Very nice. A good place to let the kids sit down and rest while you try outfit after outfit after outfit. Hehehe.

However, for a fitting room as large as this one, you should expect to pay premium prices. The outfits can try cannot buy unless you have lots of $$$$. Funny, how they have managed to turn around. At one time, I thought the Parksons all look so run down and about to close down and now they have become so premium.  

At first I was just doing scaling. I closed my eyes and put my hands on my lap. My whole body was tensed. Haha.

Then the dentist asked me again whether I wanted to have gum surgery. She had asked me to do it the last time (maybe a year aog) but due to lack of time, she had asked me to return on another appointment for it but I never turned up. Hehe.

This time she reminded me. Your gums look really bad especially this one. You should address this problem. Don’t let it get worse. So I agreed since I was already there.

She gave me two jabs and then proceeded to trim my gums. This is nothing new to me actually. I’ve had my gums cut and trimmed and sewn together etc before. I have 9 crowns done years ago and gum surgery done a few times but I still hate it.

Phew! At least that is one appointment out of the way. I will talk about my girl’s dental appointment on my other blog instead. The dentist was kind and gentle with her with the objective of making her first visit to the dentist a pleasant experience so that she won’t develop dentist phobia like her parents. Hahaha.