Archive for the 'About me' Category

My spouse does not speak to me nicely. At least, that is what my daughter says. Hahaha. Yesterday, the kids wanted to pick some books to buy from a brochure. I told them that I will have to ask daddy for them first.

“No, let us ask.” the girl said. If we ask, daddy will tell us nicely. “No, you have too many books already…..” etc (she said in a gentle, patient voice) but if you ask…. daddy will grrrrr grrrrr growl growl. (makes imitation of how someone would sound like if replying in an irrate manner.)

She then went on to give her own assumption as to why daddy speaks like that to mummy. “Maybe it is because you have been speaking to him for too many years. We speak to him for only a few years.” Hahaha.

I just had to tell him what the girl said and we both had a good laugh about it.

So, what do you think? Does familiarity breed contempt? Have you forgotten how to speak to your spouse nicely? For the record, actually the spouse does speak to me nicely. He is also very polite and often thanks me, even if I am just bringing him a cup of water. Do you thank your spouse for little things? However, he does sometimes grunt and grumble a little when he is under stress or has a lot of things on his mind. Who doesn’t?

I reminded the kids that they can ask him but they must pick the right time to speak to him. They must ask him when he is free and not when he is in the middle of something. Similarly, when speaking to our spouse, I think we must pick the right time to speak, especially if it is to discuss some important issue. Otherwise, we will end up being growled at and we will be snarling back. lol.

We got a new toy recently. A GPS. With this toy, as you can imagine, we’ve been doing a lot of driving to faraway places recently. Haha. Just to test it out.

It asked us to turn right at a no right turn. It wanted to make us make a U-turn when we know roughly that the way to go is forward. It refused to take us to our destination. It kept on wanting us to turn back!

It took us to Jalan Hulu Kelang in Shah Alam when we really wanted to go to Ulu Kelang in Ampang. It wanted to take us to some other place called Taipan in Klang when we really wanted to go to Taipan in USJ Subang Jaya.

It led us round and round and round on a wild goose chase. Still, its really interesting and we like it. The verdict is… it helps some but you should still have a general idea of the place you want to go. You should also make sure that the map is taking you to right place as there are many similar street names.

When I was  young, I did not need a water heater. Our bathing water used to be contained in a huge container and we would scoop up the water from there and splash it over our bodies.

We never had a water heater in our home. We were so thrilled to be able to use a water heater in the hotels that we stayed in once in a blue moon when our family travelled back to our hometown. Yes, we were really backdated and backward back then!

Later on, after I grew up and eventually could afford the luxury of a water heater in my bathroom, I found that I could no longer live without it. I bathe using a water heater even in the heat of the mid afternoon sun. I just MUST, absolutely MUST have my water heater. Bathing in normal temperature water leaves me shivering in cold and discomfort. I wonder if everyone is like me.

Do you absolutely need your water heater for bathing or do you prefer to bathe with cold water. Perhaps cold water leaves you more refreshed afterwards? Cold water does not leave me refreshed. It only leaves me COLD!

I remember once we went to the Highlands for a holiday and there was no water heater. Worse still, the water was only a trickle. I can’t remember much about that trip anymore but I certainly remember the bath times. It was so cold and uncomfortable. At least if the water was more than a trickle I could quickly bathe as fast as I could. I can clearly remember the slow trickle of the cold water today even though that trip was years ago.

At the moment we are using the instant type of water heaters. We do not have a centralised water heater with tanks. That means we can only use it for bathing. I would really love it if I could have the water heater for my sink as well. It would be just great to wash my face with warm, warm water in the mornings instead of being splashed awake by a cold splash of water.

My girl friend who is living in the US is just like me. She would be delighted to know that she can click here to visit this website www.fastwaterheater.com  if she runs out of water or her tank is leaking. Like me, that is definitely a no no for her.

Well my dear, if you are reading this post, now you know where to get your San Francisco water heater replaced real fast so you don’t have to go brrrrrrrrr brrrrrrrrrr.

Last year, there was a fair in my girl’s school. There was all sorts of games and food at the fair. The kids had to purchase coupons and use them to play games.

When my girl came home that day, she brought along with her two little fish in a plastic bag. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Although I was amused but secretly horrified (what would I do with two little fish!), the little boy was delighted. He had been reading about pets and was thinking about keeping a fish as a pet. He immediately claimed one fish which his sister generously agreed to.

Their doting dad went out to buy a small tank to keep the two tiny fish. The tank is really small, just nice for two or three tiny fish.

We called the fish “Goldie” and something else I can’t remember. I think Goldie died a few days later. So daddy had to go to the pet store to buy two more little fish. They soon died one after another in the following weeks and were replaced by two guppy fish like the one in the picture.

So now we are the proud owners of three little fish. Goldie’s first partner plus his two new Guppy friends. These three are hardy. It has been a couple of months now and they are still well and alive. The guppy fish looks an ugly grey from far but upon closer inspection, they have lovely colourful tails like that of a peacock. Goldie’s original partner has also grown in size.

The kids feed the fish once a day during lunch. Fortunately, kakak helps to clean the tank, otherwise,  I would have thrown out the fish a long time ago.

You know, there is something about pets. At the end of the day, it is always the mum who has the last responsiblity of looking after the pet like picking out cat or dog hairs from the upholstery and rugs, cleaning the fish tank, making sure no one steps on animal poo, bathing the pets and the list goes on. Everyone loves pets but at the end of the day, it is not easy to look after pets. They are living things that require gentle care. So who is the nurturer at home who is good at giving gentle care? Mummy of course!

Today is the day. Yes, today I have time for me again. You will notice that my blog post has been in a lull but now perhaps, I shall be able to churn out more posts again.

It has been a hectic 6 weeks of school holidays for the kids. We didn’t go anywhere, only Genting, but it was still hectic all the same. It is always hectic when you have young kids at home. The days fly by in a whirlwind.

During the 6 weeks, I did not do any exercises at all! I also ate and ate and ate along with the kids. I made tea for them and ate with them. Instead of their regular breakfast of a piece of toast and milk, I made them pancakes, and french toasts etc and I ate along with them. I also added marjerine and peanut butter and bananas and honey just like them.

What have I got to show after 6 weeks of school holidays? Why, a bigger pouch of course around the tummy area and a smaller pouch as the money drained from the real purse or pouch since we ate out more and took them to the movies etc. Oh oh!

So, my New Year’s resolution which I just made today or right now, is to exercise everyday for 30 minutes each day. Then hopefully, in 6 weeks time, I will lose the weight that I gain in the last 6 weeks, just in time to fit into a new Cheongsum for Chinese New Year.

Why do you blog? Why are you so free? Eat full nothing to do ah?

I am sure many of you bloggers out there have heard the same questions? Well, I blog because I enjoy writing. I blog as a record of my activities to remind me about them. Afterall, a blog is an online diary so that is what I use it for. Finally, I blog for peanuts. In other words, I try to kill two birds with one stone within a blog post.

How to I get peanuts? Its all about keywords. Heheh.

I just came back from a trip from Genting Highlands. I write a lengthy blog post about “First World Hotel, Genting Highlands.” From there I garnered lots and lots of search engine results from good ole Google. I love to be on the first page of search results. If I had written a blog post about “My year end trip” I would not be appearing in the search engines for those terms. Who would search for “My year end trip?” So you have to be specific. It also helps myself to be specific because I too can search for my “Genting Trip” by typing “Genting Highlands” in my own customised google search box on each of my blogs to recall details about my trip.

Unfortunately, for that particular post, I only managed to get on the first page for the search term “Genting Highlands brochure” I was No. 3 out of 4,770. See? See? Click on the image for a better view.

I am on page 2 or #12 out of 43,600 for the following search terms “Genting Indoor Theme Park Map” and page 2 or #13 out of about 46,200 for the search term “Drive to Genting”

I am on page 3 or #23 out of 217,000 for “What to do in Genting Highlands”

I am on page 5 or #47 out of 37,700 for “First World Hotel, Genting Highlands”

I am on page 7 or #61 out of 174,000,000 for “First World Hotel”

This list is dynamic so if you were to do a search for the terms right now, it may not appear as what I have listed. I may move up or down the list. That is why I did not include the links here. If you search for the very same search terms yourself, you may find that the list is not as what I have mentioned. This list is as at the time of writing.

I may also appear for various other computations of search terms related to Genting Highlands or First World Hotel or Genting Theme Indoor theme park. Hehe.

And if you were to search Google blogs for “Genting Highlands” or “First World Hotel” today 16th December, 2009, you will probably find my “First World Hotel, Genting Highlands” post from Parenting Times right there at number 1. (This post is Number 2).

It won’t stay up there for long though. It will be replaced by later blog posts by others later on. I find that you move down the list on blog search faster than web searches.

So if anyone were to ask me, why you eat free nothing to do ah. You write such a long and boooring post about your trip to Genting Highlands. Who would want to read it?

Well, the answer is… its for myself to read. I sometimes use my own google search box to search for things I can’t recall. It is really useful. Apart from reading it myself, and perhaps it being read by a handful of blogger friends, I hope that it will be found by the search engines.

Why do I want my blog post to rank high in the search engines or my blog to be discovered by random seachers? Hopefully that will cause a ripple effect and it will increase my page views, my blog value for advertisers and hopefully those who came will click on a few of my google ads on the way out. In that way, I would have killed two birds with one stone or rather achieved two objectives with one blog post.

And what is the point of this post? Why, to rank high in search engines for ”Genting Highlands” related searches of course. ;) Oh and did you know that apart from placing relevant search terms in your blog post, it matters when you highlight or put those terms in bold. You should also repeat those terms as often as you can without appearing to do so. For example, you can keep on saying “my Genting Highlands trip” instead of “my trip”. Don’t be lazy with your words. Relevant and related links within your blog posts are important too.  This is very simple SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Even an aunty like me can tell you this. ;)  Try it. It is fun. You can see results within an hour or less after your post is up.

Oh btw, if you got here because you searched for “Genting Highlands” or “First World Hotel”, why not check out my post on my other blog “First World Hotel Genting Highlands”. It will be much more relevant for you than this.

I was trying to book some hotel accomodations for Chinese New Year and to my dismay, I found that the same categories of rooms that we had previously stayed in at the same hotel, had all gone up in rates.

When I expressed my dismay to the guy at reservations, he said…

“I’m sorry ma’am. We are undergoing refurbishment.”

I asked him whether the room that I wanted had been refurbished and he admitted that not all of them had been. They are doing it floor by floor and at the moment, they had completed the first two floors and “hope to complete” up to 5th or 6th floor by the year end.

Hmm….. thats terrible isn’t it? Having to pay extra for something that isn’t there? ie incomplete/uncompleted refurbishments/renovation.

I checked other hotels and all their rates had gone up too.

Hmm… I suppose everyone had been doing “refurbishment”. Well, one thing is for sure. The only thing that has been “refurbished” are their rates!

I think I ought to boycott all hotels during peak periods and sleep in my car or something! *Annoyed*

Last night I was stirring a glass of honey and suddenly I was small again, in my mother’s kitchen, drinking the same smelling honey which I had drunk often as a child. Its funny how certain smells can invoke childhood memories almost instantaneously transporting us back through time.

I know many smells remind me of my mother. Smells of peeling or chopping onion reminds me of helping her in the kitchen. Smells of cakes being baked reminds me of mum too. Smells of half boiled eggs reminds me of my dad who took it daily when we were young. Smells of Fish Oil reminds me of, well of Fish Oil taken as a child. Smells of plain white porridge or plain bread dipped in Milo reminds me of being sick as a child etc etc.

Most of my olfactory memories relate to childhood events. So I guess, if I want my children to remember me when they are older, I better go and whip up some good regular cooking of the same foods they love often. A pity, I don’t bake. That would make some good childhood memories.

I’m never short of hugs at home. A hug is the most powerful thing. With just a short hug you say “I Love You and I Care About You” without words. Its a warm lovely feeling to be hugged and to hug and cuddle.

The thing with children is they give their hugs so freely. With two young kids at home, I’m never short of hugs. If I want a hug, all I need to do is put out my arms to one of them and they’ll run eagerly into my arms for a hug. The man is a little bit more restraint than that.

I wonder why people give out hugs so easily when they’re young and then shy away from them when they’re adults? Why do people find it so easy to hug their children but not their parents?

Even if I don’t put out my arms, they’ll usually creep or gravitate towards me somehow. Last night after lights were out and everyone was told to shhhh after a while, one little one crept towards me, hugged me and said “Mummy, you’re a good mummy.” That gave me the warmest feeling ever.

I hope to raise children who will not be afraid to hug. I hope that they will not become shy or afraid to hug me when they grow up so I’m going to teach them that there is nothing to be shy about in hugging and showing someone that you care about them through hugs. How do you teach that? By giving out plenty of hugs naturally.

Hopefully that will keep my hug supply going for many more years to come and not only in toddlerhood or childhood.

I realise this year that our many parenting firsts do not end after baby’s first turning over, first crawl, first tooth, first walk etc. After that, we had first walk, first swim, first fall, etc etc. Along the way, we had first smile, first words, and many other firsts. We also had first holidays, first day in kindy, first concert, first test, first school trip without us, first …..

However, this year, we as parents had our many firsts instead. We went to the primary school to register our kid for the first time. We got to know other equally anxious parents doing their first registration too. We had our first school orientation… all in Mandarin as we sat there in awe not understanding a word.

Then we collected our kid’s first report card in primary school. We were nervous when she sat for her first school test, performed at her first piano concert and sat for her first piano exam recently. We were probably more nervous than her worrying that she would be nervous.

At first the firsts we truly enjoyable, the first smile, the first toddler, the first words… But as they grow, the firsts become more and more nerve racking for us. Time flies too and before we know it, we’ll be experiencing their first love, first boyfriend/girl friend, first job, first kid! Help!

Nevertheless, however nerve racking, we love them all. We love all the firsts and we don’t want to miss any firsts at all. We want to be the first to watch and experience the firsts with all our kids because we love them dearly. We wouldn’t miss any firsts, not for anything in the world.