Posts from — March 2008
Cleaning and gadgets
Wah, we just bought a $75 mop by Leifheit. 
Living in our own pad and having a long-haired furry creature tearing up and down the place means lots of dirt and not much help to clean. So any new fangled gadgets or technology that makes cleaning fast and efficient gets our attention.
So far the mop is proving pretty effective. Mopping just the hall alone resulted in the entire pail of water turning completely BLACK. er, it shows that either the mop is super effective or that our hall is super filthy? 
March 30, 2008 2 Comments
Your Life
My soon to be ex-boss sent us this little story which I love and agree with. Just want to put it down here to document and also to share this with everyone. Have a good weekend!
This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen
at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was
awarded an Honorary PhD.
=====
“I’m a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don’t
ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here
this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be
hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be
thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will
be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your
particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your
life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of
your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but
also your soul.
People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier
to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort
on a winter’s night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or when
you’ve received your test results and they’re not so good.
Here is my resume:
I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work
stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the
centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good
friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they
say. I am a good friend to my friends and they to me. Without them,
there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a
cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for
lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre at my job if those other
things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if
your work is all you are.
So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life.
A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay
cheque, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about
those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in
your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water
pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and
watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby
scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her
thumb and first finger.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who
love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the
phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are
generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you
have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its
goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have
spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big
brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good
too, then doing well will never be enough.
It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes.
It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids’ eyes, the way
the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again.
It is so easy to exist instead of to live.
I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the
destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today
is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the
world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it,
completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling
others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of
the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby’s ear. Read in the back yard with
the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal
illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it
ought to be lived”.
March 29, 2008 1 Comment
It took us only over 5 years…
After much wrangling, disagreements, discussion and differences in opinions….the hubs and I have finally bought our first piece of decoration for the home. It just took us a tad longer than most people 
A 90cm by 90cm piece of wall decoration for our bare wall in the hall. It is nothing fancy, nothing expensive or even unique. It’s significance lies in the fact that we both simultaneously liked the colours, the vibes and could visualize this in our home without too much trouble. In fact, we decided to buy it in approximately under 5 mins!
The picture now hanging on our wall is a piece of landscape photography by Jason Hosking.
March 23, 2008 No Comments
Ma poor darlin’
Mauled!
Grabbed by his right eye socket by a big dog and hauled up into the air for about 3 seconds before being thrown to the ground.
The poor fella whimpered in fear and pain, than hide behind me while looking kindna dazed. Hump’s left eyelids and entire socket was bleeding quite profusely but luckily it was more bloody than damaging. Eye ball was secreting lots of muscus etc but after 2 days of constant cleaning, his eye has cleared up and everything is back to normal *phew*
Stupid owner of the big dog simply just stood there while his dog bit mine and he didn’t say any words of command to stop the fella nor did he reprimand or take his dog in hand! If you don’t teach the dog that biting is a wrong behaviour that dog will bite again! grrrr…..
I sincerely believed that the dog had no intention of attacking and it was more of testing limits since the dog was youngish. But with an owner who cannot control a big dog and who doesn’t make any effort to correct “bad” behaviour, this dog will soon grow too strong, too aggressive for anyone to handle. sigh.
Responsible pet ownership please!!
March 20, 2008 4 Comments
Currently listening to…
Tight-knit sibling harmonies have captivated pop music fans at least since the days of the Andrews Sisters and the Everly Brothers. But no sibling singing team in memory has brought more excitement to the scene than RyanDan—the performing handle for 27-year-old identical twin vocalists Ryan and Dan Kowarsky.
You can take a listen to one of their songs here: RyanDan
Loving their vocals and all that harmonization going on in there…the cd is on repeat on my player, lappie and everywhere else. It’s driving HL nuts!
March 15, 2008 No Comments
Tokyo Itinerary
Had a couple of request for our travel plans and how we moved around etc, so here’s the itinerary that we did up a day before our trip.
March 14, 2008 3 Comments
Photo Gallery
We have our own photo gallery now and it’s located at the top of this page called Photos.
You can check out more Tokyo pics from there.
March 11, 2008 No Comments
Tokyo-Part 2
The hotel we stayed in at Hakone had an attractive and cosy little library! Such a treat to see such a pleasant room filled with attractive books, audio visual materials for all ages.
March 9, 2008 No Comments
Tokyo-Part 1
After reading Josephine, QQ, some other friends & my sis’s raving testimony about their experiences in Japan, we decided that it would be great to visit the land of the rising sun for a much needed vaca. It was our first trip ever to Japan and we were a bit apprehensive about language and navigating the complex public rail transport systems etc.
However, armed with advice from friends and family, we decided not to take up any tour packages and do a free and easy to Tokyo instead with a 1 day trip out to Mt Fuji and 1 night stay in Hakone. Must say though, the public transport system in Tokyo is really comprehensive, timely and truly world-class. In this trip alone, we travelled by taxi, bus, boat, cable car, rail, shinkansen and they were all like clockwork! Exact to the very minute! We were impressed and really depended on the rail a lot to bring us out the various locations conveniently…we even ate dinner inside the train station at Damon , trying out the coupon styled ramen cafe and really enjoying it.
I must say though, that my fave meal of the trip was at Tsukiji Market, block 6 at a little shop called DaiWa. Can you believe we had to queue to get in even way before 8am!!!! But the sushi i tell you is fab and really worth getting up early and navigating ur way there. Here’s a pic of HL in the cold looking hungry and miserable heheheh(It was 1-6 degree during our stay there)… check out the queue!
March 9, 2008 2 Comments
Grouch of a Dog
Grrr….I just want to sleep!
Go away and put my shades back on!
March 8, 2008 No Comments
