Update

Photos alas! I am skipping photos of the complete process of each job (else there'd be too many - overload). Here is the summary:

BEFORE: The entire completed house is handed over without any floorings. You are looking at concrete floors of one bedroom

AFTER: We decided to hire some tradesmen to install and supply laminated floors to all four bedrooms

We decided to hire tiling contractors to tile the the rest of the house ie kitchen, meals, family, rumpus and the living room. Boxes of tiles on the concrete floors.

DRIVEWAY: We decided to go for stencilled concrete driveway and chose burgundy colour to match the roof. Excavation work to level the driveway and to remove 10 tonnes of excess soil

Truck pouring concrete onto the driveway

After a lenghty process of laying the patterned stencils onto the wet concrete ... tadaaa ... hours later this is what it looks like

Still lots of work to be done .. we have not begun to touch the backyard yet and to lay the lawn on the bare soil at the front and sides of the house. That'll come later after the fences are up, I hope. The interior of the house is bare ... no furniture & curtains/blinds yet! We are hoping to grab a few bargains during the Australia wide stocktake sale in June (if our bank a/c hasn't run dry by then, haha!!).

Now that we have got the major & important works done already, we're concentrating on preparing for our baby .. just a month and a bit more to go. Only set up the baby cot last night. My stomach's feeling so tight lately ... like a full blown balloon. I tire easily too - even scooping styrofoam beans into bean bags was like hard laborious work. I am so not used to having such little stamina and energy and a BIG stomach. I am pretty nervous about labour especially if it's a natural birth *GULP*, we'll see. It has to happen somehow.

Our lives will be changed forever - that's another nervous feeling, hehehe as we've both enjoyed our freedom so very much over the years. But I know, we can resume our freedom once baby/children grow up and what's even more fun is that they'll be able to join us in our travels. Gee, don't I plan too far ahead??! Well, every reality begins with a dream, hehehe.

Update

We finally have our laminated floating floors (fake wooden floors) installed in all bedrooms last Saturday. Feels good not to have concrete floors in the house anymore! Photos to follow much later.

Had been so busy and still am. Trying to unpack and sort things out. I strife to practice the Japanese 5S system in my household (more explanation here). I was very impressed with the 5S philosophy many moons ago when I had the privilege to be part of the implementation team at one of the manufacturing companies I have worked in my early days (the company was also going through the process of achieving ISO 9002 certification of which it succeeded). But ... 5S for household? I must be a freak but we'll see - things are often easier said than done, haha.

Meanwhile our driveway, patio and retaining walls are under construction this week (before & after photos later).

Neighbours are nice and friendly. It's a complete contrast to neighbours in apartment dwellings (maybe because apartment dwellings consists of mostly renters and not owners). Already our Greek neighbours to our right and our Indian neighbours to our back have invited us for BBQs later. I must say, the Indian neighbours are very friendly and hilarious. The Greeks are a very good looking young couple with two daughters. The Mrs is one hot babe - I hope I could be as fantastically presentable like her even after having children. Haven't had a chance to meet and say hi to the Chinese neighbours on the other side of the street at the back (a big double storey Mirvac home ... if I am not mistaken, it is this model they went for (don't be fooled by the house price, it's misleading. I mean, it is correct but lots of things are not included such as floorings, landscaping, driveway, etc, etc which will add up to at least AU$30-40k and you need to buy your own LAND to build a house that wide in our estate, which costs around AU$270k-AU$300k for 450 sqm).

Okay back to sorting.

Goosebump Post

How blessed it is to receive a dozen kisses on my face, cheeks, forehead & arm from my soul mate before he leaves for work Mon-Fri; while I was still lazily sleeping in bed and to get another kiss on the forehead after he returns from work. How could a man keep this up for several years (one peck each morning I could understand but one dozen?) ... it must take a lot of LOVE to do that especially to a grumpy, groggy non-morning person like me. Thank you Kiwi G and I appreciate it a lot *muakz*. I must have done something right over the years.

Moved

We've been living in our own home since March 9. Much to do. Boxes unopened.

Little bubba is doing fine, it's one tough little bubba alright, hang in there bub, 2 ½ more months to go till we get to tickle you.

Finally made contact with an old friend I knew and went to school with since age 15. I'd been ingnoring her emails and letter for more than 6 months. Reason? Because she never bothered to keep in touch after all those years despite my efforts. The only times she'd contact me was when she needed help on something. This time I was curious and because she was persistent in emailing me for the past 6 months, I decided to ask why the sudden interest in contacting me. Well looks like she has migrated to Sydney since January this year and just wanted to touch base with me. She apologized profusely (which is nice) for the lack of contact over the years and cited "busy" as the reason. I don't like it when people tell me they'd been too busy to keep in touch even at least once a year by any mode, be it greeting cards, emails, phone, IM, etc. Do they think that people's lives revolve around them? C'mon, you're busy, I'm busy too. Everyone's got a life to live. Contacting me only when they needed some favours kinda puts me off.

Just two nights ago, another friend whom I have never heard from for more than 2 years suddenly asked for my home address. The motive? Hope to stay at our place when she stops by Sydney in a few month's ime.

Hmmm ....

Big hearted people

Many times we tend to forget how fortunate we all are .. well at least for me, I tend to whine about this and that. I was clearing my Inbox this afternoon and was touched by this particular email. I have replaced the real name of the person with only initials to protect her ID and some words with "@_@" that would give away what I do, hehe:

---------------------------------
"I was so excited to find your @_@. My husband and I have adopted two children from China, and it has been very difficult to find Asian children @_@ to use in making their lifebooks. Both of the children have special challenges. Joshua, age 8,(from Hefei, Anhui Province) was burned very badly when he was 5 months old, and he has a prosthetic leg and is missing his hand on the left side. Our Marinna, age 10,(from Shanghai) was born without her left hand. I loved your special needs kids @_@. Thank you so much for sharing your God given gift and talent.

Best wishes,
B. E.
Denton, Texas"
---------------------------------

I am touched by how much love this person has to adopt special needs children as their own. It takes tremendous amount of Love, Courage and Strength to do what she did. She and her hubby must be such lovely people. Yet she chose to drop me a nice note to thank me for something very insignificant compared to hers. May God bless them and their newly adopted children tremendously.

We're getting there

Very busy still. Kiwi G has gone for his weekly cricket comp so I took the opportunity to go shopping. Bought some baby clothes :)

Recap for the week:

Heatlights for the bathroom and ensuite. It's amazing how much heat the lights emit.
It'll be so good during winter, no more shivering the moment you step out of the shower!

Have booked a removalist for 9 March. Over here, removalists charge by the hour (rates range from AU$95 to AU$110 per hour); not by lorry load like in Msia. Here, they usually supply two men and a big truck, not lorry.

Met another neighbour across the road, nice people. Got invited for a tour of their gigantic double storey Bellvale home.

Got the keys!

Received the keys to our home yesterday. The builder provides a personalized name plaque for the house (most people hang this on the front wall of the house). This is what we named it ... get the meaning? hahaha.

We were also given a welcome hamper containing some cheese, biscuits, a bottle of champagne and two wine glasses.

Had been ultra busy coordinating for various contractors to come on specific dates next week but it's pretty much been organised, phew! In the midst of all the hoohaas surrounding our home, I had totally forgotten about our engagement anniversary date on 22 Feb ... yeah, we are hopeless romantics that we even wish each other happy engagement anniversary every year. BUT Kiwi G didn't forget. He left me a card on the table. I was so surprised and touched; especially when he had been sooooo busy lately.

Anyway, we have decided to stay on at the rented apartment until the floor tiling to our new home is completed since the required 21 day's notice of tenancy termination ends only on 14 March. We're probably moving on 10 March. That would give us time to clean up & arrange for steam cleaning on the vacated apartment for handover. It is a requirement for rental properties here to have the entire place spick and span and all carpets steam/dry cleaned or else they won't return our one month's rental bond.

House photos

House is fully completed. Kitchen appliances, fly screens, ducted air-cond, ducted vacuum & light fittings will only be installed after we moved in.

The front door


Completed kitchen minus the oven, cooktop, rangehood and water filter to be installed later


Will show more photos after we move in - a bit difficult to snap photos during the Practical Completion as the Site Manager was waiting for us to finish snapping so that he could lock the doors.

V-Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all. For the first time in our 6th year of marriage, I received nothing from Kiwi G. That's okay Kiwi G, I forgive you, hahaha. I totally understand that he has been very caught up and stressed over the zillions of things pertaining to our home, coupled with a high blood pressure job. I honestly don't know how he keeps his cool and sanity.

Kiwi G took leave today and we spent the whole day together. Firstly, we had to do a joint inspection with the builder for the Practical Completion of the home at 8.00am. Still some red tapes to go through before we get the keys, such as getting the bank's valuer to inspect the home before releasing the final progress payment. Anyway, we finished at 9.30am and went to collect the lights we ordered from a shop a few weeks ago.

We then proceeded to Macquarie Shopping Centre to do some baby, maternity and Daddy G shopping (Kiwi G loves to shop for clothes too yeah, hehe). Bought a maternity top for myself and Daddy G bought a t-shirt+casual shirt for himself. Kiwi G wanted me to select a gift for myself as he felt really bad not having surprised me with anything special today. Aww, that's sweet but that's okay, as I'm a very contented person, I have nothing in mind and I don't fancy chocolates, so I declined his kind gesture. Had a great time looking at baby stuff but refrained from buying any now, not at least until we've moved. Had KFC for lunch.

Got home by 3.30pm and I was buggered; napped till 5.00pm while Kiwi G went to see the doctor to get medication for his eczema condition and visited the hair salon thereafter.

Had dinner (left overs from yesterday, romantic, no? haha), rested and started to clean, vacuum, mop the place a bit for the real estate agent's routine inspection of the apartment tomorrow. Finished our tasks by 9.30pm ... we're both buggered by then.

Oh yes, I gave Kiwi G a lovey dovey card and surprised him with a heart shaped pink icing coated Dunkin Donut last night. Yes, I'm a romantic - it's great to know I could still spring some surprises from my bag of tricks in our sixth year of marriage :) Happy Valentine's Day, my dahhhhhhlinnnnnggggg, if you happen to read this.

Summary of last week

I wonder what happened to the "Title" box on blogger - seems to have disappeared. (Edited on Feb 13, I stupidly picked "no" in the "show title" field of the formatting settings. That explains, my bad!).

Had Yum Cha (Dim Sum) with a new friend last Thursday at the nearby mall. When it came to settling the bill, we were told that we could only do so after we had eaten to at least the value of AU$10 per person. The waitress pointed that "rule" as printed on their menu. Well, it didn't help that neither of us could read Chinese. That's okay, we ordered chinese brocolli and egg tarts to bring the total to AU$27 and off we went, with super full stomachs, BURP!

Watched Memoirs of Geisha yesterday. It was a bit slow and boring for me. Just ok-ish.

Started watching the Winter Olympics. Love figure skating. It will be interesting to find out if Russia or China will take the gold. Can't wait for the Commonwealth Games to start in Melbourne. I love watching artistic & rhythmic gymnastics, swimming, diving and wushu (not sure if this will be included).

Current apartment

Since we'll be happily kissing our current rented apartment goodbye for good, I thought I'd show what it looks like.

Please click onto the photo below for a full sized collage of photos with comments on the apartment's interior:

Believe it or not, we've never used the indoor pool! The pool is very tiny, just like any other suburban apartment pools. If there are more than 3 persons in the pool at any one time, be prepared for a collision, hehe. Most of the time it is filled with teenage kids too ... that's enough to put me off. Suburban apartment blocks here are no higher than 15 storeys unlike those in KL that come with HUGE swimming pools and cafes or eateries. Of course here you can find high rise apartments too but usually within close proximity to the city centre itself.

However, I love this apartment a lot, it is very secure and private (except for the thin walls that couldn't keep out the mating sounds of the neighbours, ewwww). Most of the other tenants (mostly not owner occupied) are friendly, we say "hi" to each other in the elevator except for a few younger gwai pohs and one haggard looking Asian woman with orange coloured hair who are too snobbish to smile or exchange eye contact.

Anyway, the negative side of renting is that like most landlords, the owner of the apartment stinge on repairs that are necessary eventhough the matters have been highlighted the first week we moved in. Oh well, we've done our part, if they like to let the place rot and be held liable for any accident, so be it (for example, one switch has been hanging very loosely from the socket even before we moved in!). The funny thing is, they also send the real estate agent to conduct 3 inspections a year. The last inspection was done in October 2005 and now they want to do another next week ... in a space of 4 months! What the?!!! My guess is that they might take the inspection as an excuse to increase rent. Well too bad, they'd be receiving our notice to cease renting very soon. Good luck to them finding a responsible tenant with just two persons and no kids living in it, with no rent delay or default as well.

Well, alas, the AU$1,180 per month rental we had been paying for this 2 bedroom apartment in the last two years will go towards part of our mortgage from now on, yay!!

Update - Baby & House

I've been in holiday mood for this whole week, knowing that everybody I know in Malaysia has taken the whole week off in conjunction with CNY celebration. Unfortunately we don't celebrate it here ... one can hardly feel it's CNY and tend to forget easily if not for CNY SMS greetings & snail mailed cards received from family and friends back in KL and of course, greetings from bloggers too. We've stopped going to Sydney Chinatown to watch the CNY Lion Dance ... I guess after awhile, you'd get bored seeing the same thing at the same venue over and over for the past 5 years.

Little bubba is growing well. We already know its gender but we'll keep it a little secret from this blog until its birth :) We've decided on its name too "PML". P is its first name, M is the middle name and L is the surname. Yup, no Chinese name just like its father - just not common for Aussie or Kiwi born Chinese to have Chinese names on the birth certificate. I'll refer to it as Baby P from now on. EDD is 10 June 2006.

We've been busy yet again with the development of our house. A picture paints a thousand words, so here goes ... a few before and after photos of the kitchen and main bathroom yet to be fully painted and fitted with the shower screen.

This n That

We've been busy as a bee! Our house will be completed in a few weeks. We're looking at moving by end February (bye bye landlord!). Lots of things to arrange and coordinate such as phone, electricity & gas connection, lights, floor tiling + floating floors installation, insurance,etc which are just the tip of the iceberg. More vital things to be done after we moved in such as fencing, retaining walls, driveway, patio and lawn. Have to start packing already.

Updated layout - again??

Changed the blog layout yet again. My fingers sure are itchy. Updated the About Me, Pls don't tag me and Pls don't link me sections. When I am in the mood, I will play around with blogspot (challenging - as it is not exactly html friendly) with slightly different designs ... AGAIN, maybe, hehe. Kindly hit the refresh button on your browser if the updated sections show "Page not found" or "Access not permitted", thanks.

His & Hers PC

How we keep our marriage happy without fighting over PC time *LOL*

Yuppers, we each have our own separate PCs, a shared laptop (mostly used by Kiwi G) and a couple more spare PCs for guests. To avoid the hassle of having to pull cables all over the apartment when using the laptop to surf or access the other computers remotely outside of the study, Kiwi G has a wireless network set up.

When people sees our study, they'd usually ask, "what do you guys do??" Well, it's just how we like things to be. I for one, do not like to share my PC as I do all my work on it and am so used to filing things my way. The same goes with Kiwi G, he doesn't like his folders rearranged, etc. and uses his PC as a stress reliever (play games - Doom being his latest craze, read up on his tech things, maintain our private website, etc etc). However, we don't keep any secrets between us, on our PCs. I can access all folders, emails and files in Kiwi G's PC and likewise, Kiwi G is free to access mine anytime.

We just like the convenience :D

The New Year cometh!

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have come and gone - boy, those two days were outrageously hot; weather wise. NYE temp was around 40+C and yesterday was 45C!! Fried! The thought of stepping out of the apartment or taking a drive was a big turn off, so we just stayed indoors, feeling lethargic. Thank goodness today's temp is a high of 25C, a far cry from yesterday's. My tip: Try not to visit Sydney between the months of end Spring and end Summer ie Nov - Feb, unless you enjoy the possibility of exploring the city under the scorching heat of high 30+C to 40+C.

Another year has passed, congratulations, everyone gets a promotion; at least age wise, hehe.

Happy New Year 2006!

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year 2006!
May lots of happiness, love, good health and success be upon you.

This is an old animation I drew for my other website in year 2001 - too lazy to draw a new one for this blog, so I just updated the texts. For the curious, it is drawn using a pen tablet, with Adobe PS. Animation is done with Extensis Photo Animator.

Humility, a dying trait

Just because one doesn't talk (or rather, brag) about ...

• the thousands of dollars you give away to charities annually; others assume you do not give any at all
  
  
• work experiences with some of the top guns in MNCs; others assume you have never worked in the corporate world
  
  
• paper qualifications; others assume you have none and just got lucky
  
  
• achievements and aspirations; others assume you are a loser
  
  
• choosing to delay important actions before executing them at a more suitable time; others assume you were incapable all those while
  
  
• current earnings; others assume you are on the dole or welfare

It's interesting what society perceives by the surface.
So why keep quiet and not spell it all out to the world?

Humility is a dying trait - some people prefer to keep it alive.

Ooops, I'm hungry, time to eat the left over nasi lemak I made last night.

New header

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas.

Changed the header to welcome the new year. The fireworks photos were actually taken in 2003, at an open air Beetles (not the original band of course) concert in Darling Harbour.

I remember going to my first New Year's eve there, it was super crowded and impossible to find an open space to snap photos of the fireworks unless you camp there to book a good spot early in the morning! Once was enough for me. Never been back since. It was a nice experience though.

This n That

There won't be anymore work done to the house until the second week of February. This is due to the standard annual construction industry workers union shutdown from Dec 22 until end January. I really can't wait to move in by March 2006 so that we can concentrate on servicing the mortgage only and not pay rent at the same time like how we do now, which is a killer. Meanwhile, money continues to flow out like water. Heard that the double storey house next to our new home has just been sold. The asking price was AU$498,950k.

Watched Harry Potter a week ago. I'm not a fan but it was entertaining nevertheless. As I looked back into my movie tickets scrapbook, I realized that we went to the cinemas for 9-10 movies a year. But I bet that pattern will change with the arrival of G&G junior. A few people have asked if we have watched The Chronicles of Narnia & Chicken Little - well not yet ... simply because they won't be released until Dec 26 and Jan 1 respectively. Don't forget yeah, Australia usually release movies only after the rest of the world has watched them!

Speaking of G&G junior, we went for a routine check-up yesterday. All was good, baby growing well and am scheduled for another ultrasound in 3 weeks by which time we would be able to know its gender. I'm 4 months preggo todate (huh?? where has time gone??) but already, I walk like a duck sometimes.

I also happened to watch a documentary on TV lately - showing a full frontal vaginal birth (I bet this would never be aired on Malaysian TV). It wasn't gross but it certainly looked awfully painful, yikes!!!

That's all the blabbering for now. Merry Christmas!

House progress

Met another neighbour from a nearby estate yesterday. A 60+ year old guy of Dutch origin. He came up to us to say hi and wanted to know what we thought of the builder we are using, as he too is considering the same builder for a new house he will be building at a different estate. We'll be seeing him and his wife next March as he has already invited himself to our new home, haha.

After that, we went to one of our favourite mall near Macquarie Uni, for some last minute Christmas gift shopping. It was crowded alright. Can't wait to be able to put up a Christmas tree at our own home in Dec 2006 :)

Some photos...
Roof tiling has been completed almost two weeks ago.
View from the main entrance door.


Looking into our lounge area from the main door entrance


Our love nest - the master bedroom


View of the meal and rumpus area

News

Could it get any worse? NZ posters call for 'white power'

Get the latest scoop at Sydney Morning Herald

Racial tension :(

The recent and ongoing racial riots & violence in Cronulla, South Sydney is sickening. It's not the first racial tension that's happened in Sydney for the past few years. Earlier, there was the riot with the Aborigines and not so long ago, Vietnamese were rallying for a local politician to step down for making racist remarks. Never in my life have I seen so much racial tension and violence, first hand.

Cousin sis

I got a surprise phone call from my cousin sis this afternoon. We were and still are very close, like sisters. I miss her soooo much!!

Chicken

Skinning chicken is gross, well at least for me it is. I often use chicken drumsticks (I don't eat pork or beef) as a soup base and would skin them to reduce the amount of fats in the soup. Sometimes I use chicken back bones too and I skin them also. Aiyeeeeeee very gross but I have no choice. I admire the generations of our mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers who must have gathered so much courage to slaughter live chickens by the neck ... I still remember how my mom did it, blood splattering everywhere, yucks! I am sure if they had a choice like how we do now, they would not have done it. The things that mothers would do to cook yummy meals for their children. Aren't we all lucky these days? By the way, I only know how to make three different kinds of soup, ie lotus root + peanut, ABC and watercress soup - how embarassing.

Anyway, I usually buy chicken meat from this particular Red Lea Chickens outlet at Westfield Hornsby shopping mall, located just about 5 minutes walk from our apartment. One could get almost anything from this mall.

House progress III

The weather has finally been good, bright and sunny but a tad too hot, I got sunburn standing in the open space observing the progress of our house! Summer has just begun on Dec 1st.

Brickworks for the garage completed. Front view of the double garage. Braces have been attached to the roof in preparation for roof tiling which we hope will take place this week.

Close up view of the double bay window looking into the kitchen and rumpus areas

Yesterday, we bought 110m² of 500mm x 500mm (approx. 20" x 20") polished porcelain floor tiles for our rumpus, family, kitchen and lounge areas.

We're not going to have the decorative feature piece like in this photo below as that piece alone costs AU$499 on sale (normal price AU$799)


We are going to have laminated timber floorings for all bedrooms as tile floorings would feel like ice during winter. No pictures of the laminated timber floorings as we have yet to buy them but we've already seen and decided where to get it from.

JVC Everio G series

This is what we've been waiting for ... a 30 GB hard disk camcorder! JVC Everio G series looks tempting but we've blown our budget this year. It'll have to wait till some time next year *wishing hard* It'll come in handy when we make home movies on DVDs to send to family and friends especially with the coming new addition to the family.

Nasi Lemak :(

I wish I can just walk out and ta-pau nasi lemak for breakfast. How sad, I have to make my own if I want to have nasi lemak for breakfast (the problem is, I am a horrible, terrible cook). We can get nasi lemak here but only during lunch/dinner at Malaysian restaurants & food courts and they don't always taste good even with a AU$7.50 - AU$8.00 price tag per plate! Boo-hoo! Nothing beats buying nasi lemak from makcik where I can pick my dishes ... yumm ... *dreams + drools*

House Progress II

Brickworks on the left side of the house completed

Brickworks at the back of the house almost complete.

House progress

Brickworks on the right side of the house completed.

G&G Junior

I tend to get extremely lazy to blog whenever I stop for a week or two. I think it is perhaps I find myself having to repeat everything to my other close friends in emails - they don't surf the web and only use emails from work.

We had to scrap our plans to travel on our wedding anniversary when we found out that we're expecting G&G junior. It's funny how my parents, nieces, friends and cousins kept asking every year, when will we have a baby. But by the fourth and fifth year, they gave up asking and some were concerned if we had infertility issues. I guess it's rare for a couple to start a family only at their fifth year of marriage.

We had purposely taken every precaution not to have a baby until recently because we enjoyed each other's company so much and the freedom to travel and do whatever we want (a family man once told me that the reason most people need to have kids is because otherwise their marriage would be so boring - I find that so not true). Couple that with the fact that none of our immediate families live in Sydney - as we all know, if we're in trouble, family members are the ones who will be there for you at any time of the day.

Well, long story cut short, we thank the Lord for blessing us with this baby. G&G junior is 12 weeks old. We were ecstatic seeing it on ultrasound two days ago. The little heart beat, the little hands, feet and body - the joy only parents would know.

Fortunately holding a newborn, changing nappies, making milk, feeding toddlers, lullabies will not be a whole new experience for me. Not that I was a nurse, I wish I was, for I have great respect for nurses and I think that is such a noble profession ... meagre wage and hard work!

My mom used to babysit and I had the privilege to help out with everything since I was 8 years old until late teens (yes, including wiping poo poo off babies' bums). Once my best friend challenged me to fold a nappy as she didn't believe I had folded nappies thousands of times in my life (she was a first time mom at the time and had only learned how to fold a nappy with the birth of her son at age 27). Thanks for doubting me, best friend, hehe.

But alas, those experiences will never be the same as caring for my own little precious baby and I truly look forward to it. For Kiwi G, it will be his first time ever, caring and living with a newborn.

Well, like all first time parents, we are just so happy to be able to sow the seed of our love. We are really thankful for that. We just hope that we'll be able to carry this pregnancy to full term without complications and welcome G&G junior into the world in June 2006.

Happy 5th Wed Anni

Happy 5th Wedding Anniversary
to my best friend, my boyfriend, my lover, my soul mate, my bedmate (haha), my darling hubby

Electrical System

We've almost finalised the electrical system for our home - the usual upgrading of single power points to double, extra light points, security sensor light unit, bathroom heat lights, etc. We've decided to have ducted air cond throughout the house and ducted vacuum system. We figured having ducted air cond is more cost effective than having separate units of split air system installed in each room. We're also getting wiring done for surround sound system - Kiwi G truly deserves it, to be able to enjoy watching his Sci-Fi DVDs with more oomph (it's a guy thing). Now, these are all pretty standard options that people go for, in a new home. We're not doing anything out of the ordinary. But of course, unfortunately it costs a bomb - you wouldn't want to know.

Cheap Domain Names

Until Oct 31, Yahoo is offering an incredibly low USD2.99/year up to USD14.95 for a total of 5 years domain names. Dirt cheap!

Emails

*Headache* I am such a lazy bum, never got around to completely clear my Inbox. These 412 emails were accumulated over the past few months. Wish I am rich enough to employ someone to attend to email enquiries so I can concentrate on other stuff. I hope by talking about this here, I might push myself to clear at least half of them.

Chiffon roses

My artificial chiffon roses arrived yesterday

I used to preserve all rose bouquets and other flowers Kiwi G gave me over the years but had to throw most of them away after a long time. The last of the bouquet I have is pictured here ... this bouquet must be at least 3 years old. I have requested Kiwi G not to buy me bouquets anymore as they are very expensive and I get sad when I had to throw them away. So I told him that if he really wanna buy me flowers still, he can just buy a cheap bouquet that's priced AU$15 and below (crazy wife, huh?). Anyway, below are pics of the preserved real roses & the new artificial flowers I just bought - whole new bunch for only AU$12

Lights & Chocs

Bought 14 oyster lights off eBay a fortnight ago. Am pleased with the purchase, the lights are in excellent condition, the seller even threw in the fluorescent light bulbs for free. I paid only AU$4.30 each (oyster shell + light bulbs) - what a steal! A new oyster light without bulbs would cost at least AU$20 and a new light bulb itself costs AU$8.

Here are photos of the chocolates I bought Kiwi G for his b'day last month
He finished the boxed chocs in record time but the monkey choc is still in the fridge
He says it is too precious to be eaten

Land

Went to inspect the land last evening. First sign of work done ... levelled and filled the land with additional 100 tonnes of soil. The next step is the concrete work.

Dealing with the builder prior to everything almost gave us high blood pressure (but then again, people we know, experienced the same thing with other more reputable builders ... so perhaps it's the norm).

We've got an appointment with the electricians in a fortnight ... that'll incur another few grands to do additional power points and wiring.

We have yet to find a contractor for our floorings ... we still have about 3-4 months to do that as the floorings can only be done after the house handover (note, most new houses here do not come with marble or parquet floorings yeah, except cement floors).

From now on, our money only goes one way - OUT. Nevertheless, we're very excited. Having been renting for almost 5 years now (I hate living in apartments although I must say the current apartment we live in is superb with first class security and caretaker - I'll talk more about this apartment and show piccies later), I can't wait to have a little nest we can finally call home ... our very own home where we can have a cute doggie (you've to obtain permission from the landlord and the building committee if you intend to keep a dog or cat in most newish apartments), hang pictures on the wall (have to obtain landlord's permission to put nails on the wall) and our own backyard for sunbaking & BBQ!

My eye candies

I used to collect Me to You, Forever Friends (FF) teddies and Precious Moments (PM) figurines in the past few years but decided to stop as I didn't have room for them and it's a rather pricey obsession too. These are my precious eye candies. Looking at them makes me extremely happy and go awwwwww.

Most of these teddies were gifts from Kiwi G, the rest were given by friends
Though I still have some cute FF bears not pictured here (these are old photos).
I don't recall seeing original FF bears being sold in KL but they're everywhere here in Sydney, a myriad of variety too.

Right now, these poor bears are kept in a big box on the shelf.
Can't wait to free them and let them live in my new bedroom next year - Kiwi G will have to get used to the audience, haha

My super soft fluffy bears



A few of my PM figurines

I also love small artificial flowers in a basket (especially daisies). I've ordered some chiffon roses. Will post a pic when they arrive.

New layout

My itchy hands decided to change the layout a bit again. Added stone age photos to the header and footer.