Friday, December 30, 2011

P.S I Love You

Sometimes in life you do realize people do things which you wouldn't do. It can be anything at all. Just because certain people do things a certain way doesn't make it wrong or right. It's just preference. It was funny but I overheard this while waiting for a cab

"Once upon a time, it was so hard to communicate that the royals or star crossed lovers in China communicated by using secret messages through a cake - Mooncake. These days even married couples find it so hard to communicate with each other that they use a medium called Facebook!  'I love you honey' They would write. Why can't they say it to each other instead?"

Good question but I didn't dare to intervene her deep thoughts which was out loud.

"Shah Jahan built Taj Mahal for his beloved just to declare to the world how much he loved his wife. Yet these days, people do that on Facebook. It became a little embarrassing. Mark my word, people will start proposing on Facebook too."

Hmmm, maybe people already have. I'm not that active as I should be with facebook or twitter. My husband recently started twittering for his business and it works for him.

I guess it works in some and not in others. But in a way, I have no clue why this lady was sulking over this issue but I guess I can understand where she's coming from.

Too often you see people declaring how great their husbands/ wives/ partners are on facebook yet it can be far from truth. Recently, marriage counsellors claimed that those who declare to the world about how romantic their partners are usually get that treatment so rarely that they tend to be the ones making a big deal out of it.

According to them, those who actually have a blissful romantic marriage rarely seen declaring to the world or even talking about it since for them it’s a norm. In fact people will realise themselves that these couples are blissful with the way they interact with each other without having to prove anything to the world.

Why are people so keen to tell the world that they are so lucky? Again the marriage counsellors said that this is a way to convince themselves that they are how they want to be or wished to be. I don’t see anything wrong with people declaring their love in public. I won’t do it myself but I think there are some out there who wouldn’t mind sharing their lives with others.

Again, there is nothing wrong with that. Well, not to this lady in the queue. Her friend who was with her, seemed too afraid to give an opinion and I shouldn’t be caught eavesdropping! So I didn’t say anything. She’s obviously upset about something or at somebody. Her friend took out her iphone & was fiddling with it for a bit.

Then the sulky lady’s phone beeped an alert. With a straight face, her friend said “I just posted something on facebook”

Sulky lady read it aloud “P.S I Love You” ????

Bread & Butter Pudding

Bread & Butter pudding. I’ve never heard of it before being with my husband. His parents are English but he is a true bred Aussie. It’s not too surprising then that he has been brought up with all the traditional delicacy from England.

I am a very chocolate person. All my life I refused to even try dessert which doesn’t contain chocolate. The strangest thing is that I also strongly believe that fruit should be eaten as they are as they are just beautiful to eat! Why have banana fritters with ice cream when banana taste good as it is? Keep the healthy stuff healthy and the unhealthy ones just name it “chocolate”. Sometimes you have a bad day and you wanna do yourself harm, you reach out for CHOCOLATE. That’s the strongest drug I would reach out for !! ;)

My mother in law once told me that I would miss out on a lot for not wanting any fruit in my dessert. Of course I just laughed  it off. I probably do miss a lot but I probably don’t wanna know it for sure! We had guests yesterday so we had a 3 course lunch which was finished with hubby's famous Bread and Butter pudding. It was phenomenal – not that I’ve ate many other to compare! 

It taste so sinful and unhealthy that I felt like a rebel! ;) It was supposed to be only with raisins. I hate raisins. When  I was growing up, I was forced to finish a box of raisins everyday. They said its good for you. Whatever. The minute I didn’t have to, I refused to ever do something so torturous ever again (Exaggeration In Progress).

Bread & Butter pudding is supposed to have raisins in it, but my sweet husband had half with chocolate chips instead. It was sooooooooooooo good! Unbelievable! God bless him! ;)

Renting A Place


In Singapore, unless you are Singaporean, you are probably one of us NOT LIVING WITH OUR PARENTS. As this is a foreign land for us where family is tagged on close friends instead of blood relation, we do not inherit any land or apt for that matter for us to be able to be rent free.

Every couple of years the dilemma of “to move or not to move” came into the conversation. We used to be young couple who was attending every party and who hosted too many parties ourselves. But we did all these in our little condo in Orchard Road – the prime land of Singapore.

This is where everything is happening. And while most Singaporean would dress up to go to Orchard, as it is seen as the in place to be, this is actually our neighbourhood. Mind you, I’ve seen many condos in Orchard and they are tiny pigeon holes. We were lucky to get this as it has huge rooms and living space, it doesn’t make you claustrophobic

But of course that came with a slight pride. Well, as if!  We could proudly say we live in Orchard. But then we added one member of the family. To begin with, this place held furnitures from both mine & my husband's. On top of that we need all these extras for a tiny little thing (Our daughter). Who would have thought that a tiny baby would take so much room. Oh yes they do!  They control your sleeping time, your working time, your shower time, they take your room and your life and in return they would beam the most beautiful smile that you think everything will be just perfect!  Suckers! ;)

Since my daughter was born we compromised a lot on space. We need space for her cot, her bathtub, her stuff – that’s a whole cupboard full. And it didn’t help that on Christmas day she’s getting all the presents while us parents got one gift each. We are not sour grapes (no really) but we need to shift our things away to fit all these presents we get from relatives. Again, we are not complaining about the gifts! ;)

In short, we need more space. Recently we started on our house hunt. My husband decided to rent a house instead of an apt since that was how we were brought up and he wants our daughter to grow up the same. And not being cooped up in an apt. So we went house hunting. There was always something not right with the houses we saw. Some houses have such beautiful space but they have the weirdest renovation that got you thinking “what the hell were they thinking?”

We saw one at 39 Gilstead Brooks. I started to wonder why the developer would ever think this concept would work. It’s a cluster house. It was one of our consideration as we thought our daughter would love to play in the pool and my husband can use the gym. But when we looked through the house, that unit wasn’t the ONLY unit we looked through, we could see all our neighbours too. The proximity between the units were too close for comfort.

If I am standing on the balcony, I would be seen by my neighbours from the left, right and especially the front. The one in the front would think I’m trying to look at them, and therefore, I won’t use the balcony. All my rooms are facing the other room. Privacy is very important for us, we don’t see how we can live with the curtain drawn at all times.

We then visited one which is in the kingdom of far far away. It’s called Summer Garden. The concept is nice. And it’s a lot spaced out. You do not looked into someone’s window and your privacy is well taken care of. The pool looks beautiful and the area is very serene and quiet. Well, it’s good that we were visiting during the festive season, because we could tell from all the red banners on their doors that all of them would be celebrating Chinese New Year. Would we feel out of place being the only foreigner there?

This house has 6 rooms to boast and when you go to each room, except for the master bedroom, the rest of the rooms can just fit a super single bed. That doesn’t include the cupboards yet. So I’m just trying to imagine having guests and having to tell them that each spouse have to take separate room? ;) That doesn’t work.  Rooms and cupboards are very important for us as we have just too many things in this current apt. Somehow it seems to be the case of quantity than quality with Summer Garden. Yes I can tell people I have 6 bedrooms but they are tiny!

We also looked at a house in Figaro Garden. Love it!! I love the house, the serenity of the place, I love the outdoor area, I love almost everything about it. It’s very open and spacious. Our only issue is that the house doesn’t provide cupboards at all. The agent, Steven showed us around the house with an attitude suggesting that we may not even be able to afford this house. Little that he knows that we are paying more in Orchard for a smaller space. I didn’t like the way he showed us around. He also told us that we would need to buy our own cupboards as different people prefers different cupboards.

Well, my issue is, with the 6 bedrooms it has, what happens to it when we have to move to a smaller place next. Let’s say the owner decides not to rent anymore and we need to move out and could only get a 4 room house/apt – what are we going to do with the rest of the cupboards?  And my husband is a bit anal when it comes to furniture! He has to buy the best of the best!!!! Even for a rented place!!! The expenditure would just be too much.

So, as much as we love that place – we each silently planned in our heads what to put in each rooms, only to blurt it all out in the car when Steven was out of sight.

We finally chose one apartment in East Coast facing the sea. It has only 4 rooms but more than sufficient for us. This is an old building. So all the room and the living space are very spacious.

We've just settled in nicely now. Let's see if there is any reason to raise a bitching session soon. ;)
                                                                                




Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Mommy's Curse!

The children could be a handful. They are the best thing in life but they do have personalities now which means it can get difficult. I'm THAT sensitive now during one tantrum session, my daughter screamed "I don't like u!"

I felt it sharp & curt - like a stab in my heart. I know she doesn't know better - she was just saying that to tell me that she was upset but it came out that blunt. But it got me thinking -  she's only 2, imagine her words when she's 16. Can I take it then?

When I know she understands her  words quite well- what excuse am I gonna feed my heart? Of course, that is if she turns out that horrific. If not, I'll have a better heart to spare. Woes of a mommy.

I know the peak is yet to come, she'll one day come to me & tell me "Mommy, I'm gonna do sky diving! Or bungee jumping!"

So far we are adopting the story that I never did all those because I don't know how to explain to her why she shouldn't do it while I did those stuff when I was 18. (Which happened to be not too long ago ;))

I mean she should go for it ..really. But this annoying maternal gut thing which screams "She might get hurt!! You have to protect her!" Yet how do you even try to make her understand that - that I was just worried about her. Even I didn't understand that kind of invisible bond before I became a mom myself. So why would she.

One thing I resent this title of being a mommy is the worrywart badge that comes with it. You WORRY about your children ALL THE TIME. I don't enjoy that & I hate the fact that I'm going through that now. I'm struggling to keep the balance.

I'm pushing my kids to do what they can while holding them back when I sense danger. That's maternal stuff because I realized even daddies do not understand that.

Daddies in general are more relaxed about children upbringing. It could be because they know that the children are in good hands & therefore they don't need to work that hard since they know the worrisome mommies would go their extra mile to make sure that everything is more than ok anyway.

Sometimes the more relaxed attitude bothers me but more because I resent the fact that they are able to be relax and I can't. I'm not saying I'm one of those obnoxious mothers who are smoldering their kids big time.

In general I want my kids to explore the world & get down & dirty,exploring all possibilities. I've seen parents who buy knee socks so their children do not get sore knees when they are crawling. I want my kids to rough it out & if it means they will have sore knees, that's part of growing up. I survived it. I'm sure they will too.