Archive for the 'House & Home' Category

There are traditions and there are family routines. Tradition may be brought down from generation to generation but I believe that family routines can be created by your family and then enjoyed from year to year.

The kids are older now and our Chinese New Year routine has been established. Before, when they were younger, we did not have any routine but we thought that it would be very nice to have a family routine that they can look forward to each year. Now they know it well and look forward to …

1. Shopping for Chinese New Year Clothes. We limit our shopping to once a year only (unless necessary), then we go all out and have a shopping spree for Chinese New Year and everyone looks forward to having new clothes. We figured out that if you buy new clothes throughout the year, Chinese New Year would not feel any different.
2. Chinese New Year Cookies. Mummy does not bake so she will order the same cookies from the same place and when she brings them home the kids gape and go ooh and ahhh when they see the familiar cookies that they only get to eat once in a year. Then the kids will say “Please, please mummy can we eat them now?” and bad mommy will say “No, you will have to wait till Chinese New Year.”
3. Haircuts. The whole family goes to the salon and  have a haircut together. It kind of breaks the bank a little but its nice to go together. On normal days, sometimes mummy gives them home haircuts but for Chinese New Year, its off to the salon we go.
4. Chinese New Year Decorations. Now that the kids are older, they can help out. They love clipping, stringing and making homemade angpow decorations and I love listening to them work as a team in deciding where to hang each decoration. Usually, I will ask their opinion and let them decide so they can really get in the mood and contribute.
5. Spring Cleaning for Chinese New Year. Mummy gets to do most of it of course but on the eve of Chinese New Year, the kids will be roped in to wash the car and the porch. How they love the water and soap splashing fun.
6. Reunion Dinner. Usually its just the four of us because parents in law are no longer with us but we still cook up a storm anyway and everyone dons new pyjamas after dinner. Then we pack money into the red packets that will be given out as angpows and mummy and daughter will do their nails. Then mummy and daddy will give the kids their angpow and they will put it under their pillow to sleep on. Everyone stays up late and at midnight we will turn on every light in the house to welcome New Year.
7. First Day of Chinese New Year. Everyone gets up bright and early and have mee suah (vermicelli) soup then put on their brand new clothes and shoes. Then we go to the temple to watch the lion dances. After that we may go visiting or just stay home to relax and pack for the next day’s journey.
8. Balik Kampung. We will usually go back to mummy’s home town from the 2nd to the 4th day of Chinese New Year. We visit mummy’s aunties and see more lion dances, we play by the beach, go to more temples, pay respects to mummy’s mummy, play fireworks by the sea and send lighted lanterns into the sky.
9. Middle of Chinese New Year. Sometimes daddy invites his friends over and mummy cooks for them and the kids get to play host and hostess to other kids.
10. Chap Goh Meh. On the 15th day of Chinese New Year or the last day of Chinese New Year, its time to meet mummy’s brothers and sisters to have a gathering or dinner and exchange angpows with all the nephews and nieces.

That’s it. We do this every year to create a routine and tradition for the kids so that they look forward to Chinese New Year and in doing so, we enjoy our Chinese New Year very much too.

Kids, when you are grown and have your own families, we hope that you will remember fondly and continue with this routine and tradition that you have grown up with.

Recently I had to upgrade my refrigerator because the kids have grown and we have run out of space. Each week, I had rearrange my fruits and vegetables to make sure they all go into the fridge.  I actually had to push them in to make sure they all fit in! The fruits and vegetables were not getting any breathing space at all! We do a lot of juicing so we buy a lot of fruits and vegetables each week. So we had no choice but to buy a new fridge.

My old fridge which is more than 10 years old was a National Tanto brand. In all of the years which we used it, it has never given us any problems. Not even one day. Not even when we moved it around when we moved house. It is an excellent fridge. Unfortunately none of the retailers we visited would allow a trade in for an old fridge.

When we asked them what to do with the fridge, the standard reply was “Just pay $10 or $20 and ask the lorry driver to get rid of it for you.” Imagine that! What a waste. It was a perfectly good fridge in perfect working condition and everyone asked me to throw it away! Not only that, I had to pay some money to get it thrown away!

I think that people these days, are getting more and more wasteful. Don’t want an old phone? Throw it! Your old tv is outdated? Throw it! Upgrading your fridge? Throw it!

Then I remembered Pertubuhan Amal Seri Sinar. Several years ago, when I was moving house, I had called them to help me take away my bulky items including sofa sets and other used items including boxes of books and old clothing for recycling. Persatuan Amar Seri Sinar or P.A.S.S. is a self-supporting NGO formed in 2003 to educate the public to recycle for charity.

What can you recycle? Wearable clothes, shoes, bags, toys, newspapers, magazines, plastic, glass, aluminium, electrical items, usable furnitures…

I immediately called them up. They told me that they will help take away usable bulky items. All one has to do is call them up and they will come the next day. Lovely. I didn’t have to throw away my perfectly good old fridge after all. I could recycle it. So we had kakak clean up the fridge properly. We gave the inside and outside a good wipe but we didn’t call the recycling company for two weeks because we felt rather sentimental parting with it. Well, its finally gone now, donated for charity and  I hope it will be put to good use now, the way it served us for more than 10 years.

If you have any bulky items, no make that bulky usable items that you want to recycle for charity, you can contact:

Pertubuhan Amal Seri Sinar

Lot 754, Jalan Sungai Tekali, Batu 14, 43100 Hulu Langat, Selangor

Tel: 03-9021 1888

This is the story about how we lighted up our home. We purchase a second hand house. It is about 20 years old. So, unlike a new house where you have to plan everything from scratch, we only had to do minor renovations before moving in. However, we did have to change some of the lights in the house though.

I remember we walked around all the lighting shops and shopped around for days! It was fun to shop for lights. There were so many kind to choose from. Some, like the Hinkley lighting were fashionable and had interesting shapes and design. My brother in law who is in the furniture business said that we should have a chandelier in our living room.

Unfortunately, we could not because we had a ceiling fan right in the middle of the living room. I wish we had got a Hinkley Chandelier like the one you see in the picture. It would have lighted up our room so much more as well as make it an interesting show piece to talk about. I don’t like the fact that my room is so dark all the time. We also thought that a Chandelier was for a grand house but my brother in law said that should not be the case. I wish we had listened to him.

We shopped for some bathroom lights as well. Hinkley bath lighting has a nice range. A nice bathroom light can give bring your bathroom from ordinary to extraordinary. In fact, lighting in any part of the house can do  just that. We really had a fun time shopping for lights. I am not sure the children were though. They were bored to tears as we dragged them along from one light shop to another. Looking up at all the lights also gave them a neck pain. It also gave us a neck pain but we enjoyed it nevertheless.

If you are buying a new home, you should take your time shopping for lights because once fitted, you won’t be changing it frequently. So take your time and really enjoy the process of choosing and buying just the right light to light up your home.

I need careful time management. Seriously. Today, I wake up and I am faced with several things I would like to do. First, the facts.

I have a full-time helper at home and my kids go to school for half a day.

That is plenty of time right? Right? Wrong! Half a day is a very short time indeed. Take today for example. These are some of the things that I have at the back of my mind which I would like to do.

1. I want to clean the windows, change the sheets and wipe the cupboard doors. But you have a helper? Yes, but someone still needs to supervise her.
2. I want to do my exercises which I have been badly neglecting. That one certainly needs some working on!
3. I need to have a look at the kids’ books to prepare to help with their revision for their coming tests. Hey! Tuition teachers and school teachers need preparation. I am guiding and teaching my children at home so definitely I need some preparation too. You can’t teach without preparation.
4. I can’t wait  to get started on the two books I bought over the weekend. “Teach Yourself Visually Worpress” (Gotta conquer this wordpress fear I have) and “Get to #1 on Google”. There is no point writing pages and pages of good content if it is not found. I think my blogs have better potential as a Money Making Machine. *Ahem* I just have to figure it out.
5. I have to finish up my crossstitch project. Really, I must work on this one before my eyesight gets worse.
6. I just found a new contest to enter. Must work on that slogan. (Don’t view this one as trivial or a waste of time. Nosiree. I have won many contests before, some of them valuable items with a little work.)
7. I have to work on my piano songs. Been neglecting playing for so long. Speaking of which, I have to help the kids prepare for their piano concert.
8. I must help the man pack for his working trip.
9. While we’re at lists, I almost forgot that I haven’t gotten the courage to call up my gynae for an examination yet. I think I’ll probably procrastinate on that a little more first.
10. The new fridge we bought has yet to be delivered….
11. Then of course, there are my blogs and my Squidoo lenses to maintain….
12. Oh and I almost forgot. Today is Monday. My kids always look forward to Mondays and Fridays because I have scheduled gym time for them. Actually, we just go to the porch to kick a football around or my girl may run around with her kite and try to “fly” it on our tiny porch dragging it all over the floor and plants but even then, we have to make time for it and it requires effort to make it happen. Effort as in “Hurry up and finish your homework!”
13. I should probably forget about trying out any new recipes for the family or making more homemade kaya jam.

Help! I need Time Management

Some people have said to me. “You know, if I have to stay at home like you every day, I will go mad!” I suppose they mean mad from boredom. I am going mad from having too much to do and not knowing where to start! I have no time to be bored. If you add to this, the times when the kids fall ill or have more activities, then I have even more to do.

So how do I manage my time? I guess, I will just have to draw up a time table for myself the way  I draw one up for the children. So, here it is, my timetable for the day….

1. Finish up this blog post.
2. Supervise helper to clean windows and wipe cupboard doors. Leave the bedsheets to tomorrow.
3. Exercise. Get moving!
4. Do my contest slogan thingy.
5. Supervise Lunch
6. Read my new books/Do a few cross stitch lines
7. Help the kids with homework
8. Supervise teatime
9. Help the kids with piano
10. Organise gym time for the kids
11. Supervise meals Dinner
12. Plan what to pack for the spouse
13. Change batteries for the alarm (I forgot to put this on my todo list)
14. Help! I better get moving NOW!

We have done our errands like banking etc and I have a helper to help me with the meals and washing the childrens’ uniforms and shoes and ironing and cleaning the toilets. If I have to add these to my list above, I will go mad. Yes, I will certainly go mad staying at home, not from boredom but from having too much to do. I am “lucky”. Lucky that I have a helper to help me with some of the more mundane but necessary tasks so that I have more time to spend with the children. However “lucky” comes at a price. It isn’t cheap to have a maid and there is a loss of privacy. My maid has been with us for 3  years. She plans to work for one more year before returning home. I guess I better enjoy this time now. Otherwise, housework will become my “exercise” and I have to say goodbye to my books, piano, cross stitch, contests, blogs and squidoo lenses. Where would I find the time?

I know someone who is building her dream house. It has 3 floors, a balcony overlooking a golf course and a swimming pool. However this person, who is currently living in another house which most people would consider a dream house says she prefers her current house. Unfortunately she can’t stay there anymore because her husband has sold it! She isn’t really looking forward to moving because of the prospect of maintaining the house. Just thinking about it gives her a headache.

I think she should have central air conditioning. I hear that the level of noise for central air conditioning is less. The air is also pulled through sophisticated filters. The filtered air is then routed to the rest of the house through return-air ducts. I can’t imagine having to maintain so many air conditioning units. A central one would be better for her.

She showed me a plan of her house the other day. It has a walk in wardrobe, his and hers sinks, a room with balcony for her husband and her as well as for her daughter. It is indeed a house anyone would dream about. However, it is true. Maintaining it would be a headache indeed. That was what I felt when I moved from my 1100 square feet apartment to a landed property. Sometimes I wish I was back in my apartment. I could clean it in10 minutes flat.