Archive for November, 2009

Today is the officially the first day of school holidays for the kids. So…….

• After a full day of activities with the kids
• After hearing their constant non-stop appeals of “mummy, please play with us” (yunno, the kind that leaves you guilty if you don’t and busy if you do?)
• After one whole day of breaking up fights
• After taking them out to water the plants only to have a huge dead lizard drop in front of me when I opened the door (the man must have accidentally wedged poor lizzy on his way out to work this morning)
• After discovering a host of huge flies hovering over some stray cat poo near the flower pots (Oh Kitty! Why can’t you catch the partying rats on my roof instead of leaving your smelly poo behind?)
• After the kids danced around near the cat poo and large flies and watered the porch floor and themselves instead of the plants
• After spending nearly an hour trying to fix the batteries on their trains for their train set and almost breaking the trains in the process (Can you tell that changing batteries is not included in my normal tasks? Its usually their dad’s.)
• After one full day of shouting and nagging

I have decided that the school holidays is waayyyy too long. In my earlier post I had thought that it would be too short. Oh how wrong I was!

Its the last day of school for the girl today and the boy tomorrow….. which means that I shall be very, very busy in the next 6 weeks…. being……

• referree to settle fights between a 5 year old and a 7 year old (this will probably be my main role)
• a tuition teacher (since we’ve been given next year’s text books, might as well start looking at some of them)
• an art teacher (still want to learn some oil pastel techniques to teach the kids)
• a scientist conducting science experiments
• a chef…. well, no, just daydreaming …… actually, I’d really like to bake with the kids, but I still don’t have an oven
• a music teacher (theres a piano concert to prepare for)

We’d also really like to go for a day trip or two … or perhaps to the cinema… if its not too crowded… we musn’t get too complacent as there is talk about an H1N1 second wave.

We also need to make all those yearly dreaded appointments to the dentist, the gynae for a pap-smear, perhaps the neuro for a third opinion. Sigh. I’m not looking forward to those.

Gosh! With so many activities, I believe 6 weeks will just fly by! I wish the school holidays is 3 months otherwise tak puas. Its too short!

Today my girl had to keep on adjusting the straps on her school shoes because they keep coming off! This is the second pair of shoes that are still fairly new in appearance but the straps are lose and the shoes are very uncomfortable and can even be dangerous since it keeps coming off!

These days the kids wear school shoes with velcro straps instead of shoelaces. There are pros and cons. Velcro straps are easy to manage but like my girl’s shoes, the velcro straps have worn off (after less than a year) whereas the shoes are still new and they still fit.

My girl has 3 pairs of school shoes. Somehow, the shoes look very black and dirty after being worn for just one day so I have to wash them either daily or on alternate days. Fortunately I have kakak to help me. Even then we scramble to wash and dry them and we have to crack our heads to plan ahead to make sure the shoes are dry and available on time.

Does anyone know where I can buy velcro straps to sew on the shoes myself?

It won’t be easy though because the straps are thick and the space for sewing is small. I’ll have to use a really big needle.

Does anyone else have this problem? Do you have a way round this problem?

I’ve started receiving them. The tuition center brochures. Some of the brochures are sent to the house, some are handed out to us as we leave the school. The brochures are for tuition during the school holidays on various subjects. All starting at the start of the school holidays till the end of the school holidays! Oh my goodness! And they’re not for fun extra curriculur activities like baking, drama or whatever. They’re for the languages English, Malay and Chinese as well as Maths and Science. Gosh! What sort of a holiday is that?

I went to enquire at an Art Centre because I was so enthralled by the way the children are taught to use their oil pastels. I didn’t know how to teach the kids that. I thought maybe if they learn the techniques then they will be able to create their own beautiful works of art.

The holiday program costs RM160 for 4 lessons. Gulp! You better hurry too as it is very packed during the school holidays as parents scamper to find activities to occupy their child with. Hmm…. I think we’ll pass on that.

I haven’t decided what to do with the kids yet during the school holidays. I may give them some home schooling, do some crafts as usual, go for a day trip or two. I’ll probably learn the techniques of colouring with oil pastels myself from the internet, teach it to the kids and do a home project together and save RM320 for two kids. lol.

What are you doing during the school holidays? Do you support tuition during the school holidays?

I haven’t played around with my blog templates for a very, very long time. Just like my slowdown in blogging, the first thing to slowdown is playing around with templates. I used to spend so much time changing things around and customizing my templates. I was also on a learning curve at the time. So it was all very exciting. Then I stopped.

Anyway, yesterday, I decided to include the RSS Feeds from my other blogs and place them on the sidebar of all my blogs. Its easy to do this if you are using blogger. Its just one click away with the widgets. However this blog is using wordpress and I don’t know how but I managed to yesterday.

My Parenting Times blog is still on old blogger believe it or not. I’ve been terrified to make the change! So I included the RSS the hard way too but Mothering Times is easier.

Now you can access my other blog posts from my other blogs easily from any of my blogs. See? See? There on my sidebar? Points to the right. What do you think of the colours? Should I make them blend in or should I make them stand out?

Psst. You should do this too if you have several blogs. It’ll make it so much easier for us to follow your blogs.

My girl has received her text books and activity books for next year.

We sat down together to wrap them. “Can I try to wrap them myself mummy?”

The normally impatient mummy said ok. So she happily tugged at the plastic and pulled at the tapes. She did a reasonable job. She wasted some tape and when hers did not look as good as the ones mummy wrapped she scolded herself.

“Oh, you ah…..you are not good at this. You are wasting so much tape. Why mummy never scold me for wasting so much tape?”

I told her that she was a good girl to try to wrap them herself, wasting some tape was just part of the learning process and practise makes perfect.

“I did it!” She was very happy at her own little achievement of wrapping the books. I could see the self satisfaction that she derived from this small activity.

I must remember to let her do more of her own things without taking over the task. Quite often in my impatience, I either brush the kids aside telling them that I will do it or I rush them etc. From the way she scolded herself for not doing a good job and asking me why I did not scold her for wasting tape, I can see that I need to improve in this area.

Wrapping the books bring back memories of the time when I had to wrap my own school books. Those days, we used to wrap our books using the backs of wall calanders ie we’d turn them over so that the white part of the paper shows. Using calander paper was good because it was thick and glossy paper. Now, the kids have ready made plastic wrapper which you just slip over the books… however quite often they don’t fit exactly. Thats why we had to adjust them with tape.

I also remember the thrill of receiving new books and putting them all in my school bag which really looked like a suitcase. I still remember it was a red and black checked suitcase bag which when flipped open had a few compartments at the top. I don’t think they have suitcase type of school bags anymore. Now all the children carry bagpacks or trolley bags.

Its coming to the end of the school year now. I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown. Soon both the kids will move on to a new school year meeting new classmates and teachers.

Everyday the girl comes home with a lighter load as they return their books that were on loan. There is less homework too. The other day I overheard the girl telling her brother “Now very relaxed. There is only 1 or 2 pages of homework.”

They have finished their year end tests, collected their results and on Friday they both had a Children’s Day party at their respective schools. In the car both of them chatted excitedly about their day in school and showed each other their gifts and food that they received. They exchanged gifts and shared their food.

Each day the school bag gets lighter, the homework gets lesser and the heart feels lighter. After school they do not need to do tons of homework, rush to complete revision or anything. They get to play and play! How lovely. For mummy too, who does not need to supervise any homework or revision.

There is only 2 weeks left for the school year. A rather relaxed 2 weeks.

I found this funny blog post : You’ve Lost That Blogging Feeling. It pretty sums up how I’ve been feeling lately.

Gone are the days where I would rush to my blog when I wake up each day to view stats, check comments etc. Why I would even refresh my adsense every chance I got.

Gone are the days where I could publish posts back to back on several blogs each day. Now, I’ll be content to have a post once in a few weeks.

Gone are the days when I could blog hop endlessly from one blog to another. I no longer have the energy for that. And the funny thing is when you stop visiting blogs, they stop visiting yours too. Its like if you come to my house, I’ll come to yours but not otherwise. These days I mostly read my favourite blogs from my blogroll from within my feedreader itself, leaving comments only occassionally.

I think I’ve fallen off the peak of my blogging chart. I’m definitely experiencing a slowdown. At one time, everything seemed bloggable but now all my unsaid words get stuck in my head and stays there or forgotten after a while.

I wonder if I’ll ever get my blogging mojo back.

One of my phone lines is out so I called 100. After calling up and pressing 1, press 2, press 1 and so on and so forth, I was finally asked to key in my phone number which I did… 3 times! Each time it said I had keyed in an invalid number. Finally it tells me that I have reached the maximum number of tries. Fortunately I eventually got to speak to a human instead of a machine.

I was told that since my main phone line is still working, then it must be an internal wiring fault and I should call a wireman or contractor on my own because maintenance of internal wiring is the responsibility of the customer so they cannot make a report.

Fair enough. That makes sense. However I do not know any contractors or wiremen so I asked for a recommendation. The girl on the line tells me… “Can you call back this number 100-1-2-1-1, speak to the customer service rept and ask for a recommendation?”

So I called 100-1-2-1-1. The man at the end of the line told me I should call 100. I told him I just did! Then he told me to go to TM Point to make a report. I told him that the girl said I cannot make a report and that I should call this number for a recommendation for a sub contractor. He insisted that I should go physically to TM Point to make a report and they would arrange for a contractor to be sent to my house.

So, since I am a bored housewife who has nothing else better to do with her time…. I walked to TM Point and told the girl manning the booth at the entrance my problem. “You should call 100″ she said. I told her I had already done so and they asked me to come physically to TM Point, so she gave me a number.

I waited 20 minutes before my number was called. At the counter, the lady said “What are you doing here? You should call 100.” I told her I did and I was told to come here to make a report so that a contractor can be arranged. She then flipped through some pieces of paper, wrote down a contractor’s name and telephone number and passed it to me. “Call this number and make your own arrangements” she says.

Isn’t it ridiculous that I have to go physically to TM Point, wait for 20 minutes just to get a telephone number which someone could have given me over the phone. Totally inefficient and bad service! My morning is ruined!

Our older than 15 year old car is going to  need a mandatory yearly inspection in order to get its road tax renewed now. Sob. Sob. This is under Under Section E Part VI of the NAP Review (whatever that means). All I know is its a pain. To the wallet and to our time.

Our car has been well kept and well serviced. We are certainly not driving around scrap metal but it would seem that it is almost going to be considered scrap now. Oh Boo Hoo Hoo. This is such a hassle.

What should we do? Should we start to think of replacing our car now? We had saved a lot of money over the years by hanging on to this car and not changing cars every few years as would seem to be the fashion nowadays. We don’t like to change cars because its value depreciates too fast. Why would anyone want to own a depreciating asset?

Our car road tax renewal is coming up soon. How ar? Our car is well maintained but… but … but…. What to do if it fails the inspection? Haiyah! Bother! Bother!