Two New Bottoms

Just before Australia Day in January, I bought myself two new pair of bottoms from Target. I wore the denim shorts on Australia Day and wore the other grey cropped pants on the first day of CNY on Valentine’s Day. I desperately need new clothes. In fact, both of us need new clothes because more and more clothes are becoming too big!

With Summer coming to an end, many end of season clothes have been drastically reduced in shops such as Target, but we don’t really dare to buy any because if we lose more weight during the year, they may not fit by the time Summer comes around again at the end of the year. The new shorts we bought M in January 2009 are now so big, they don’t stay up without a belt. LOL. The new belt he received for Christmas is also becoming too big. He is down to the last hole. Is there a place to go to punch another hole? Mr Minit?

My own need for a transition wardrobe started around April 2008. I noticed that I constantly need to hitch up my jeans every few steps. I thought there was something wrong with my jeans and it was happening to all of them. It never occurred to me that my weight was dropping. So, I solved the problem by wearing a belt but by the time AFL Grand Final came around in September 2008 I had no other option but to ditch those jeans. Reluctant to buy new clothes for the warmer months because I tend to only like to play dress-ups in the cooler months, I went digging in the wardrobe for pants/jeans that I wore back in 2004 and found some Levi’s that fitted just nice. They looked alright still but they didn’t last. They too were becoming too big by May 2009 so I went back to the wardrobe for another dig. It was like going on a trip in a time machine. So until I bought the two new pairs of bottoms from Target last month, I have been wearing clothes from circa 2001! LOL. Believe me, the clothes from 2001 do look quite outdated and I don’t mean in a fashionable vintage kind of way. I did buy a few new pieces for Winter last year to mix and match with the old clothes but I just can’t bring myself to buy a whole new wardrobe every time I drop a size. That is just too wasteful don’t you think?

M and I are not on any miracle diets. We love food, including junk food. As I type this now, I am craving for some Pulut Udang - ewww… to some but absolutely delicious to me right now. We have however added more vegetables into our meals and we walk everywhere. I think the walking is playing a big part in the weight loss because I think we are losing more from the waste down. That doesn’t mean that my upper half is not shrinking. It happens a little slower than the rest. When M and I were queuing to buy super cheap Korean instant noodles last year, some guy behind us was going on and on about another guy’s unusual weight loss. He insisted that his friend must have undergone some kind of treatment (e.g., liposuction) because the resulted weight loss was ‘uneven’. LOL I tried desperately not to laugh at the time. Someone else I know also insisted that walking alone does not result in weight loss because according to her, walking is a good exercise for your heart only. I beg to differ and I think M will agree too that all the walking we had done had also contributed to greater improvements to our lower halves.

Gold and Lollies for the Gold Digger

Back in early January, M went up to Ballarat for work. While he was there, he also went to Sovereign Hill and bought me some gold and some lollies. Aren’t I lucky? LOL. After so many years, M has finally bought me a vial of gold. ROFL. In response to the ‘Gold Digger’ label, M has always jokingly said that I have been digging up more mud than anything else. LOL. So, this must mean that I am doing a poorer job than those Chinese miners from all those years ago. Anyway I am super lucky that M didn’t simply buy an empty glass vial and fill it up with mud. LOL

Oops!

We went to the city to get our groceries on Saturday. On the way to QV, we had lunch and then stopped by the city square to watch a show put on by the Flying Trapeze. The group is giving free lessons to the public and they put on a little show at around 1:30 pm each day. They have been doing this for a few Summers now. I love turning up to watch the volunteers teaching people who had signed up for a free class. They have no problem communicating with strangers. When they put on their little show, you will know right away that these amusing people have been practising their tricks a lot.

So here is my slip-up. It has nothing to do with the Flying Trapeze. Well, not really. After we got home, I was in the kitchen putting away the groceries when my thoughts turned to the little show we watched earlier. I asked M what he thought of the show and he said that it was pretty good and that we should go again on another day so we could take a few photos. Without him asking me what my thoughts were about the show, I invited myself to tell him that the best part of the show was this guy – one of the volunteers. M looked a little puzzled to me and so I thought I had better elaborate. I went on to tell him that this guy’s upper body is designed like a Mountain Buggy! M looked even more puzzled after this and I thought that I had better explain more. So I went on to compare this guy’s upper body to things like Tripp Trapp (by Stokke), Maserati, Nienhuis and I think I also mentioned Mountain Buggy again twice. I was trying to say that this guy’s upper body is well designed. By the time I finished talking, M didn’t look too happy. I now know that this was a look of dejection but at the time, I was thinking, “Just what is his problem?”

As I was preparing dinner, my thoughts turned to M this time. I wondered why he reacted the way he did. The TV was on and the local news was on a loop. I keep hearing about the murder of a millionaire and something about someone who now has his old mobile phone was receiving weird phone calls. Then for some reason I asked myself, “What if M said that so and so is build like a Goddess?” I paused and inserted Naomi Campbell’s image. Well, I didn’t like that at all. LOL. OMG! I hurt his feelings! But I wasn’t thinking about that guy in a sexual kind of way! The guy is probably married! I was comparing his sculpted torso to other well designed pieces. Anyway, I ran to the room to apologise and gave M a hug. A hug from me is precious because I am not the lovey-dovey kind that is forever hanging onto a man physically. M was surprised that I actually figured out the problem. LOL.

When I was reading a book I got for Christmas just last week, I skipped to the beginning of a chapter about the lack of empathy. I almost instantaneously discounted that I have any problems in that area. LOL. What happened on Saturday is a typical example of my tendency to say things without considering the emotional impact on the listener. I wonder how frequent does it occur? Talking can be so hard. There are so many things to take into considerations. Sometimes I think I am in too much of a hurry to get my message across.

Below are photos taken of the Flying Trapeze Show today. I hope they will be in the CBD again next year.

The guy hanging onto the bar just bumped the other guy off. LOL.

We have contact!

See how happy this guy is?

How I wish to be able to do this! May be I will pluck up enough courage to try it next year.

Mid-air photo shoot.

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Missed again! That's OK. It was a difficult trick.

This guy falling down is funny.

Useful Scraps

Here is the coin pouch that I made for M when he was away on Tuesday. It is similar to one that I made for myself recently. It is another chance for me to practise making a pouch with lining. Because I wasn’t quite sure how to repeat it, I didn’t spend much time altering the overall design. The pocket at the front is deeper this time and a key ring is also included. It is hidden inside the pocket.

Other than the zipper, this coin pouch is made entirely with scraps, which includes the interfacing I ironed onto the wrong sides of the fabric pieces. Even the key ring is recycled from the old worn out coin pouch heading for retirement. I also made the pattern pieces using a cereal box so they can be reused when I make another one in the future.

M loves it!

A Wish to Explore the Northern Capital

I had just finished reading Jan Wong’s “Beijing Confidential – Lost and Found in The Forbidden City” recently. The truth is that I had started reading bits and pieces of the book last year when it was first released in the bookshops. When I saw it sitting on the display shelf at the City Library recently, I borrowed it right away so I could read it from cover to cover in the comfort of my pigeon hole without having to worry about overstaying my welcome at any one of three bookshops I frequent quite regularly in the CBD.

This is the third book written by Jan Wong that I have read and I have enjoyed it so much so that I feel like it is timely to visit China again. This urge is also further fuelled by an article entitled “Five Things the US Can Learn from China” that I read in the latest copy of Time Magazine on the weekend. Sure the country is known to the West for its human rights abuses and sure there may be a few things they do in life that do not sit well even with me, but still there are other aspects of China that are highly appealing to me and I would really like to experience them with M. In the book, Jan Wong mentioned the rapid progress happening in Beijing and despite being in China on and off in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s plus a trip there with her family in 2003, she was having trouble getting around because the city has changed so much. This got me wondering how I would fare in Nanjing now. LOL.

Going there is also a good opportunity for M to speak Mandarin. My mum insists that his Mandarin is going nowhere because he just doesn’t have the opportunity to use the language here in Melbourne. It is considered by some to be rude to not speak English in public. Even if we don’t go right now, making plans to go could kick-start his interest again. I am all for M to start practising privately within the walls of our pigeon hole. I can see that I am getting sidetracked but there is just so much stuff to blog about. This is meant to be a post about a book I have read… I am about to write about a ‘you’re must be dreaming’ type job offer but I will leave that to the next post.

A Bit of Self Improvement, An Observation & A Timely Change

M was away the night before Melbourne Cup last year. Even though our Guinea Pig died in May 08, I remember I was still struggling to cope and was particularly bad on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I was so grief stricken that I had forgotten that our building tends to become very lively on days like the Melbourne Cup Day. People would start partying from the evening before the actual day. Thank goodness for those party animals because without them I would have spent most of the time crying or feeling sad until M came home. This year M was away again for Melbourne Cup Day but I coped alright by keeping myself busy with sewing and watching foreign movies, including a bit of a French one that was way too weird for me. Recovering from the lost of my precious friend is surely a slow process for me. I did shed a tear or two before heading to bed but that had nothing to do with my Guinea Pig even though I miss him still. The issue bugging me is something I wish to blog about this month but am not sure yet.

Here is an observation. On the eve of Melbourne Cup day this year, I was able to hear may be two or three parties going on in the building and it was all quiet just after midnight. I thought that may be people were heading to bed for a good night sleep before the big day. On Melbourne Cup day, the place was peaceful like on Christmas Day! No parties at all. The only noise came from an excited little tot in the pool with her parents and grandpa. The two security officers hired for crowd control purposes were visually bored to bits. LOL. I am not saying that we have rowdy party animals all the time but there were no parties at all. LOL. It was weird. And by 10:30 – 11:00 pm, most people had gone to bed! Where did all the energy go?

M has a new work schedule finally. Although his working hours are slightly longer, the new schedule will work out better for us. The new schedule is to commence in the middle of the month and I have between now and then to work out a new menu and its shopping lists because our shopping days have to change to suit his schedule as well. He has also put his hand up for three grocery shopping trips per fortnight. Although I find his enthusiasm a bit bizarre, I am just going to enjoy and see how long it lasts. Of course I hope that it will last at least till the middle of Autumn. Doing three grocery shopping trips per fortnight with M means that I only have to do one top-up trip on my own or none at all during that period. Wow. I really like that.

10 Words That = 3 Special Little Words

There are a few blogs that I regularly drop by to read their latest posts. One lady recently wrote a post titled “Three Little Words”. Her conversation with her husband got me thinking about the way I speak to M. Everyday when M goes to work or leaves to go somewhere else, I say to him, “Be careful when you cross the road. Don’t get mugged.” There, those are my 10 special words that are suppose to mean “I love you”. I didn’t think they were anything unusual until around 4 1/2 years ago. I was on the phone to M when a certain little vegemite was eavesdropping right next to me. This little vegemite decided to copy my words as part of a conversation she made up for her dollies and this time her mum overheard and freaked out. The little vegemite told her that I said it on the phone and her mum called right away to see if we were alright. LOL.

These days I do try to say “I love you” when I remember to but it just doesn’t sound right. LOL. It’s like using the F words. They just don’t seem to ‘fit’ me. In fact the F words were so amusing to M that he nearly crashed the car when I first used it in his presence. LOL. When M learned how to say “I love you” in Mandarin (Chinese), I laughed like mad at first but later I found it somewhat off-putting. There is just no point for him to say it in any other language that I speak. When it is coming from him, “I love you” is fine in English. When it is coming from me, the ten words I mentioned above sound more natural than the 3 special little words in English.

M is okay about the way I speak. He sometimes jokes that some of my vocabulary is uniquely me and only he and I could understand the meaning of it. LOL. Over the years, he has begun to understand things from my perspective. He is slowly learning that the words that come out of my mouth may be English but the usage is still sometimes influenced by my culture or my upbringing. Recently though I have begun wondering if the way I speak has anything to do with a condition I have. That’s something I would like to look deeper into. One of the many beauties of being in an inter-racial relationship is that there is just so much more to learn from each other. Just when you think that we humans share so many similarities another thing pops up reminding us of our differences.

Absolutely Fuming Still (Super Long Rant)

The last 10 days or so have been horrible. It has not been fun sorting out the junk in the pigeon hole. The amount of junk is also forever increasing. We keep finding things that we thought we chucked out long ago. M, the much needed helper turned into a slave driver insisting that I speed up my effort. Instead of sorting things out systematically, his way was to box everything up and send them all to the storage unit. I was apparently spending too much time deciding what to keep and what to chuck. 3/4 of what we want to store in the ‘shed’ is complete and nasty M seems to think that the success has every bit to do with his push to speed things up. He totally believes that if he didn’t help out last week, nothing would have been accomplished so far. M is not a very nice person when the bully within him comes out of the closet and I know very well from whom he inherited this nasty trait from.

We completed our trips to the ‘shed’ on Friday and I was allowed two days to rest to prepare me for hell. His so-called ‘holidays’ started on Monday. He had to take time off work for a specific duty that I can’t reveal for now but it has nothing to do with the ‘Global Financial Crisis’ or any other personal reasons. We were hoping that the whole kerfuffle would turn out to be nothing and we could use the time off work to tackle the ugly pigeon hole even though I don’t really like working with him. That was not to be. We found out today that M will have to perform a special duty for the next 15 week days. That’s just absolutely great! He is going to be stressed and when he gets home, he is likely to have a go at me for doing things too slowly.

On Monday, we spent the afternoon moving things around within the living areas to make way for when we have to empty the bedrooms. I also spent some time re-arranging my Montessori bookcase and my ECE bookcase. Everything was going great until we stopped work early in the evening. M went to take a shower and he apparently used my freshly laundered PINK towel by accident. I love the feel of freshly laundered towels and had been looking forward to using it all day. I instantly chucked a hissy fit of course. M didn’t seem to see what the big deal was about. He stormed into the ‘cave’ (spare bedroom) to retrieve another one for me but the slave driver had forgotten that I had been so busy of late that a big pile of dirty clothes (including towels) were still waiting to be laundered and there were no fresh bath towels left in the wardrobe. He offered me a beach towel only to aggravate me even more. The beach towels we have received as gifts over the years are all poorly made. They shed a hell of a lot of fluff when used. Anyone reading this probably thinks that I was behaving like a spoilt brat but I think the pent up emotions gathered from previous days just exploded. I love doing things my own way and hate to be forced to do a crappy job just to fit someone else’s timetable. I also do not believe that M picked the wrong towel up by accident because someone like him wouldn’t choose anything PINK unless he had been forced to. Sad to reveal this bit of info but M was conditioned to think from a young age that all things PINK are for girls.

Things calmed down after we walked to Safeway to buy bread and milk but it didn’t stay that way for long. M was surfing the net after dinner and at one point he walked away from the computer for a brief moment and I happened to see a photo of him on the screen. It turned out to be his Facebook account and he had placed a photo of himself on it. The photo looked familiar and I didn’t recognise it right away. When asked, he explained that it was a photo of the two of us but he had cut me out of it. The photo didn’t look like a digital image. I next asked him to show me the original photo and to my utter horror, he clicked on his Facebook photo album to find it. I really believed that M had thoughtfully cut me out of the photo because he knew full well that I prefer to not be shown online. When he showed me the original photo of the two of us from within the photo album, I flew into a complete rage. At that instant, I realised that he had placed a photo of me online without my permission. It was not a digital image and so it was not from our collection. The scanned photo was taken a long time ago by his VIP and I look absolutely UGLY in that series of photos. I am not joking. Whenever the media makes fun of Michael Jackson, they always show a famous mug-shot of the singer. Well, in this series of photos (including the one he had added online), I actually looked just like an oriental/Asian version of MJ in that mug-shot pose. Again M didn’t seem to see why I was offended. The thing is that it didn’t matter if he had posted that photo or another one, I just do not want hideous me to be posted online for the world to see. It is hard enough to put up with stares on a daily basis to worry about what the rest of the world could be thinking as well. I do not wish to interfere with what is going on with his Facebook. I had long accepted that the thing is used by him to maintain contact with his family and other shallow beings but he has absolutely no rights to add a photo of me without asking me first. I have no proof as to who whipped up the idea of adding my photo; it probably was him like he said but I know full well where he got the photo from.

To make matters worse, I also found out that he had decided to tell the world what he had found in my collection of old CD’s. He thought that most of my CD choices were hilarious and had to share it. He conveniently left out the fact that the CD collections he was referring to were ones that I bought as a teenager. Some teens have shonky taste and I admit that I belong to that group but that doesn’t mean that he had to go around mocking me behind my back. As predicted, one shallow being responded with a “Hahahaha...haha…haha…ha”.

OK. If I don’t like him mocking me online and showing a photo of me without my permission, I therefore shouldn’t do the same here on my blog. I don’t think I am contradicting myself though. Here, so far in this post, I have not mocked him. With regards to posting a photo of him, I did indeed post one not so long ago but he was well aware of it and it was a shot of him from behind. When I started this blog, I had never intended to say so many nasty things about M but lately, I honestly feel that he has turned into someone else altogether. I wonder if him being testy has anything to do with how his parents react (ever so positively) to recent events that has happened to his siblings.

Anyway, when I woke up on Tuesday morning, I showed him my dissatisfactions by verbally blasting away at him for 3 hours straight. It wasn’t a good idea because I developed a slight fever after that and conked out after lunch. He probably enjoyed the peaceful hours that afternoon when I was knocked out by a couple of paracetamol tablets.
When I finally got up, I gave him the cold shoulder for the rest of the day and refused to work, full-stop. The Cold War would have lasted longer but there is just so much to do around here. I don’t believe that I have achieved anything by yelling at him.

One of the first things I was taught when I came to Australia is that no one can change another person. The changes have to come from within. This is why I found it amusing on Sunday when I saw people marching down Swanston Street. Are these people so naïve? Do they really think that they are capable of bringing forth true harmony by walking together once in a blue moon? It was just one big media publicity stunt. I found it more interesting to observe the facial expressions of shoppers and visitors who were ‘interrupted’ by the loud and colourful procession.

I have not been very happy since I last blogged. I don’t think I will be cheerful for a while. Oh yeah, there was another thing that happened on Sunday night that ruined the start of this week. It was German Grand Prix 2009. Not only did my favourite driver do poorly, the one and only driver that I had always wished to never win ended up winning! He wasn’t just up on the podium coming in third or second, he won! He came first! Believe it or not, Mark Webber won? I was really hoping that his engine would stall just metres from the finishing line. That would have been a great start to the week. LOL. Mark Webber is actually quite cute but I have never liked him since he started racing in F1. Not his fault actually. My dislike for Mark Webber has a lot to do with how Eddie McGuire ‘introduced’ him to the world during his first race. I won’t go into it too much now or this post will never end.

A New Plant +/- a Snail

M bought a new plant and a snail for the Black Moors around a week and a half ago. Up until then there was just a rock and two plastic plants in the fish tank. I read somewhere that plastic plants can be dangerous to Black Moors because they have poor eye sight and may accidentally pierce their ‘goggles’ if they bump onto them. I wanted the plastic plants out of the tank after reading that. M wanted to replace the plastic plants with a live plant because it will increase the oxygen levels in the water. He picked one that is ‘potted’ so the fish can’t dig it up easily. M also bought a little snail but unfortunately I don’t think it is still with us. Its job was meant to be an underwater ‘vacuum cleaner’ but I personally don’t think it survived the water change. M took out some water during his turn to clean the fish tank. I suspect that when M was refilling the tank with fresh tap water, he created such a ‘whirlpool’ that the little snail didn’t stand a chance and probably died instantly of shock!

Time for Some Changes: Food

There have been gentle requests lately for me to stop using Dashi, Gomashio and Nori in our food. I love those three ingredients. The same person also asked that maybe I should make the Chicken Hotpot less often or make it without the Dashi. My Chicken Hotpot is not complete unless I cook it with Dashi. Okay, I do admit that I have been going a little overboard lately. I confess that I have been serving up my Chicken Hotpot 3 nights in a row per fortnight since mid-January. What baffles me though is that he requested that I should serve the dish less often or cook it without Dashi last Monday but then I also found him gulping down every single drop of the liquid in last Tuesday’s serving. So, does he like Dashi or not? (The liquid is made up of Dashi, Soy Sauce, Sugar and Mirin.) Another request for the hotpot is to reduce the amount of Lotus Root but that is so good though.

It looks like it is timely that I change our fortnightly menu again. I haven’t changed it since mid-January! Before that there were three changes in the period between December (08) and mid-January. From the mouth of the ‘fussy-pot’, I heard that he is yearning for comfort food. The nasty devil inside me felt like to tease by saying, “You should have married an Aussie wife like what everyone has been telling you if you want to eat wholesome Western food all the time.” Of course I didn’t say it to his face. Why would I? The truth is that M is not very fussy at all. While I can live with the same food over and over, M needs variety more than me. For example, when we used to go to Pancake Parlour, I used to order the same meal but M would try something different in each visit. At home he had been eating the same dishes repeatedly over a two week cycle since January. So, I do agree that we need a new menu.

M had been asking for his favourite soup and something with lamb. So perhaps my Chicken Minestrone and Irish Stew will be back on the new menu. The soup will replace the Chicken Hotpot but I will try to cook enough to only serve it over two dinners per fortnight. Oh, another dish that we both love in Winter is Chicken with Tarragon and Mushrooms. Now that we know that chicken is cheaper at ALDI, we can’t seem to have enough of it. LOL. I am still not sure what Asian dishes I would like to include this time. I will have to consult my cookbooks in the next few days.

Our menu always consists of dishes from both the West as well as the East. This inter-racial couple is always seeking to achieve balance in every decision we make. I admit that I am a pretty dodgy cook and I am glad that M has been putting up with my dodgy food for so long. I have seen Asian men complaining about their wives’ cooking in public. That is just awful. I have also seen one Aussie personality (some people reckon that he was quite a celebrity) who used to sell his wares on TV complaining about his second wife’s cooking after he ditched her to return to his first wife. The second wife is a youngish Asian (Thai/Filipino). When they first got together, he gave her heaps of thumbs up for everything. Anyway, as an outsider, I do not know the full story behind the fallout and I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead too. All I can say is that I am super glad that M does not put me down in public. But I still don’t understand why he doesn’t like Gomashio. So, would I be banning those three ingredients from our kitchen? The answer to that is NO. Regarding the Dashi, I will dilute it before I use it in some of my cooking. Not all dishes require Dashi. M never said anything when I used it diluted. As for the Gomashio and Nori, I will sprinkle them on my food and not his. He will just have to peg his nose while I am eating. LOL.

I Collect Stuff Too

After ranting about M and his stupid DVDs, I feel like to write a post about the stuff that I collect. Yeah, I collect things too but I do it with a difference.

Most of the things I collect are for work or for testing them out at work and for our dream classroom. I have a bookcase full of picture books that I use for work that can also be used in our dream classroom one day. I also have a small pile of other classroom resource books and another bookcase of Montessori books and manuals. There is also half a bookcase of games, puzzles and other classroom materials that I had tested out at work and they are kept for the dream classroom. A few of these materials are not store bought; they are handmade by me. Why, one may ask that I buy these now? Well, here in Australia, there is an abundance of good quality classroom materials I can invest in that are simply not available where the dream classroom will be located in the not so distant future. A lot of things will cost me just as much to order them over there and had them shipped out from here as if there are bought here and then shipped over there when we move. At least I can physically test these materials before deciding if they are worth keeping and have them shipped out by buying them over here now. What if the dream project falls through? Well, if the dream project falls through and we are still together, then they can all be very useful in our wish to homeschool. Oh dear, I think I just let the cat out of the bag about our (mostly my but increasingly his as well) wish to homeschool! There are multiple reasons as to why we have chosen this path even before the birth of any children but I think I will go into that in the future. Let’s just say that some (our biological children are likely to fit into the category) children really do benefit from and therefore need homeschooling.

M collects things for pure entertainment. To some people, this statement may be a little unfair since cultivating my dream classroom/project happens to be one of my ultimate forms of entertainment. LOL. But the reason I said it is because along with my education, the things I mentioned above are collected as an investment in a project that is likely to generate a nice enough steady income in the not so distant future. On the other hand, M may feel entertained every time he procures an item; the truth is that most of his collectibles depreciate in value as soon as he paid for them at the counter. In years to come, M may have a few pieces in his collection that may fetch a handsome price tag but I doubt that will be enough to give us a tidy nest egg, to pay boarding school fees or university fees. I hate to sound like a fun police but I was brought up by parents without receiving any form of funding from the government. Where I came from, ‘milk money’ was virtually non-existent. For my parents, every cent counted to give my brother and I the opportunity to gain tertiary education. That doesn’t mean that I was completely deprived of fun and toys. We just had less than the average child in the Western World.

I have to confess that I do collect for pure entertainment like M. I collect sewing patterns. There is a box of them under my desk. About 40% are used. The rest just sit there because I haven’t gotten around to them yet. To avoid overspending, I usually buy them when there is a deal similar to the other day when each pattern is reduced to just $5 or when there is a “Buy 1 and get 2 Free” deal. I also periodically trim the number of unused patterns in the box by off-loading them on Ebay. Because the patterns were mostly bought when they were heavily reduced, I usually recoup the money I spent on them when I do sell them on Ebay. Unlike M, I moderate my hobby so it doesn’t get out of hand. Hopefully he has genuinely come around to better moderate his hobbies. It is not fun to live with someone who needs to squander hard earn cash to feel ‘good’.

After ranting about M in the previous post, I feel a little bad for doing it. It’s not something I wish to talk to my mum about because she is already under a lot of stress caring for my Dad who was readmitted to the hospital last week. M is mostly a wonderful person. No one is perfect. It’s just that there are a few things about him that I do not like and they are likely to be the result of flawed parent-child and sibling interactions that have remained unresolved all these years. His issues (minor to some) not only don’t sit well with me, they are just not ‘sustainable’ in the kind of life we wish to live on the long run. I think he is slowly coming around to tackling these minor issues. It’s important for me that he has them sorted out before the arrival of any children. I too need to sort out my own issues. LOL.

Pricey Collectibles/Rubbish

Note: I am ranting again. If you don’t like reading anything negative, there are heaps of other blogs out there.

I am very angry at the moment. I just found out on Friday that M had gone around to ordering online and purchasing from JB Hi-Fi a big stash of DVDs behind my back. He had decided foolishly that he needed to splash out on more rubbish to celebrate his birthday. There are times when I feel sick just looking at the stuff he had collected over the years. Depending on the price tag, I usually turn a blind eye these days but if the item is pricey, he does get yelled at. This time though, M had exceeded my highest level of tolerance. He didn’t buy just one or two DVDs; he actually bought more than 10! The Get Smart ones were $40 each when he paid for them a few days ago. When I found out about the secret shopping spree, I told him that he should have waited because I am absolutely sure that the price for them will come down. Guess what? The same Get Smart DVDs are now priced $27.99 each in the latest Target (Mother’s Day) catalogue! M can be such an idiot.

During one of my many phone calls home last month, I told my mum how M is spending less on his hobbies these days. I was full of praise. He overheard it and felt really good about that. Little did I know that he was about to embark on a senseless spending spree. He probably thought that I was too blindly in love to realise his secret purchases. I wonder what else he is hiding from me. He had better cough up everything before my birthday.

From die-cast cars to comics to DVDs, M buys all sorts of collectibles. It’s like an addiction. M does not take drugs or smoke and rarely drinks (alcohol) but when it comes to buying all this stuff he thinks that he virtually has unlimited funds like Lindsay Fox. I totally believe that he was encouraged to collect these things since childhood because I now witness the next generation (nephews and nieces) getting encouraged into such hobbies. (It is scary just visualizing that.) This supposedly gold-digger had tried to take control but as you can see, I was not very successful. One should also see the looks I get from a certain someone if I dare say anything negative (however minute) about M.

We had a big talk on Friday. M was defensive at first and when he is like that he tends to exaggerate things. He suggested selling what he bought to recoup what he had paid. I had to laugh but that must have been the dumbest idea. Now that the DVDs have been viewed, they would have to be sold as ‘Used’ and would therefore fetch literally nothing on EBay. LOL. He looked utterly miserable all day but I am still not sure if that was all one big act. I refused to offer any suggestions but I will give all the support if he needed help moderating his hobbies. To some people, telling M what to do is like controlling him excessively. I don’t want to be that nasty gold-digger. Eventually it was he who concluded that he needed to practice moderation. Interestingly, he also decided to work on some (self-esteem) issues after I ‘painted’ him what his life and childhood were like before we were together. Apparently I was spot on. I have ‘painted’ similar pictures for him in the past but he mostly rejected them probably because they brought back too many painful memories that he simply didn’t want to face up to. He is probably ready to do something about those issues now. As said before, I will support or help if requested. He will have to do the bulk of the work because he has to be the agent of change, not me.

Beard Wanted

Wednesday the 22nd of April was M's birthday. It was meant to be his day off but he had to attend a seminar on Asperger's Syndrome. I wasn't too happy about that but he came away with a greater understanding of me. I guess that has got to be good. LOL. We went out for dinner - nothing fancy though. I am not big on celebrating birthdays. We are truly becoming boring and old. Seriously though, all I wanted M to do for his birthday this year was to grow a beard but he seemed to think I was being silly. Sometimes I just wish that people will take me seriously. May be he will grow one for my birthday next month.

A Break In, Being Sick & Busy Cleaning

I have not been blogging much this month because I have been busy. At the beginning of the month, we were shocked to find out that our storage unit was broken into and we were requested to move to another unit. Nothing was stolen. We weren’t the only one broken into; the stupid man also broke into the other units next to us as well. He has no problem gaining access into the building because he is the owner of the units that he broke into, but we rent our unit from the storage company that manages the whole building. So, while he has access into the building (to access his own unit if he has one), he has no right to break into the other units. I was very cross with this individual. Even though the storage company had already contacted the authorities, we were given details of him in case we wanted to take the matter further. A person like him is why I really can’t stand big headed hotshots. I don’t care that he is an executive of a giant mining company but idiots like him is one reason why I wish to live in a rural property far away. Unfortunately, someone like me may not be welcomed by rural communities.

The rest of the month was spent cleaning our apartment meticulously from top to bottom in preparations for the upcoming festive seasons. This late Spring Cleaning is absolutely essential because our festive seasons start with Christmas and ends on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year celebrations (which I think will fall on March 6th in 2009). We have been incredibly lucky to be blessed with beautiful weather most of this month. Temperatures under 24°c are ideal for cleaning. I am not a very nice person when the temperature soars above 32°c. This is why it is so crucial to get things done thoroughly now before the arrival of the super hot days. That said, it doesn’t mean that we won’t be doing any cleaning between now and March! We just do less. Hopefully the temperature in the days leading to the Lunar New Year celebrations will be just as good but I doubt it. For some funny reason, just the thought of the LNYC makes me craving for Nian Gao. I normally don’t even like that stuff.

M started the second half of his annual holidays last weekend. He has been looking forward to another break but he came home with a bug instead and came down with a cold within hours of arriving home. As usual, I was so angry at him for being sick and banished him from the bedroom. Luckily our Guinea Pig is no longer with us. Despite our careful attention in hygiene to prevent transmission, M managed to pass the cold to me. Before bed on Monday night, I felt like there was something in my throat. By the time I got up on Tuesday, I had a full blown sore throat like someone had smuggled razor blades into my throat while I was sleeping. Then I seemed to have gotten better on Wednesday but that was the calm before the storm. That evening the fever hit. I slept a little and then dashed to the toilet to puke, repeating the same process over and over for hours. M steered clear most of the time because that was expected of him but I found out later that he did pop in every now and then to check on me. I asked him to pull a face to show me what I had looked like when I was sick. If his acting was accurate, I conclude that I look pretty much like a dying water creature in a lot of pain. LOL.

Despite passing the cold to me, M has been a champ in helping to give the apartment a good clean. He was needed to clean all the hard to reach areas. Most of all, I liked how he patiently re-whitened the grout lines in the bathroom. Super white grout lines are very important to me. M will pick up the Christmas tree on Wednesday and we hope to have it up and looking pretty by Saturday.

Third Trip to IKEA

We have visited IKEA three times in just four weeks. That means that we have visited the big store at least 4 or 5 times so far this year. We went on Saturday solely to return some boxes that I bought hastily on the previous Sunday. We have never returned anything we have bought from IKEA prior to this and weren’t quite sure how the store would entertain us. The service was surprisingly good and friendly. They gave us full refund even though I had unwrapped one of the boxes from its plastic packaging.

The trip was meant to be ‘punishment’ for M for hurrying me. The devil in me was looking forward to dragging him through the store again but the devil in him was on leave and M ended up being a pleasant shopping companion on the day. We didn’t go through the whole store because we didn’t have the time. We bought a soft toy for a niece and then went downstairs to inspect their range of frying pans. I wasn’t quite sure of their quality and ended up not buying any. Now I will have to continue using our sticky frypan until Christmas time.

Time Wasting & Living in a Mess

One of the things that I had wanted to tackle during the holidays was to reorganize the living areas to make it more homely and less like a work space. We had neglected our little home (or ‘Pigeon Hole’ to some) in recent years, turning the open plan living areas into one big work space ‘littered’ with projects in various stages of completion. When we went to Victoria Gardens to pick up some spare parts we had ordered at Howards Storage World a week before the holidays, we dropped by IKEA. M patiently explored the big store with me. I found that strange because M doesn’t like IKEA very much. We left after collecting the latest catalogue and came away with lots of ideas on how to improve our living areas.

In the days after the big flood, I was plagued with unfounded worries of a leak in the water pipe under the hallway and the kitchen. Although it sounds stupid now, I was truly convinced that something horribly wrong was happening all because one area of the hallway took longer to dry. I was so worried that our home may turn into the Apartment of Mould, just like the House of Mould that I saw on TV. Instead of using our free time productively, I argued and picked on M for not taking my worries seriously.

I do admit that I am quite a worry wart; being especially worse at night – before bedtime. Morning is the best time of the day for me. I turn into an optimistic person after a good night sleep. Mornings are especially good now that Spring had arrived too. Spring means that the sun comes up earlier and sets later. Despite losing an hour, the result of a longer day is why I didn’t mind the earlier switch to daylight savings this year.

On one such positive morning after the flood, I got out of bed nice and early to draft a couple of layouts of the living areas for M to pick. He picked the one I liked best. Inspired by what I saw at IKEA, I decided to relocate some of our existing furniture to create small but purposeful areas within our whole living area. I made sure that I included a cosy area for us to chill out and relax.

Did we plough ahead and start working? No! We were caught up with the AFL Grand Final frenzy and went out to Fed Square to soak up the atmosphere and wasted time and money in the city bingeing on fatty foods like we had only just discovered Melbourne. We both also got pretty burnt for staying out too long in the day. Neither of us were Geelong or Hawthorn supporters but we rocked up for the parade anyway. I just went along because M never gets to enjoy events like these due to his work. There was a minor consolation prize for doing all this. Both of us ended up in a photo in the paper the next day. No, it wasn’t a close up of the two of us. It was one of those pictures taken from a helicopter in the sky. Finding us in the photo reminded me of those “Where’s Wally?” books. LOL.

Two days after Hawthorn beat Geelong, we settled to start reorganizing the living areas. The effort we put in that day was not bad but did it last? Not really. We abandoned it the next day to go watch WALL.E. Tuesday is the only day that I allow for us to go to the movies because the tickets are cheaper. We were supposed to watch the movie and buy some bread before coming straight home but we ended up having lunch in the city and hanging around Borders as well. By the time I got home, all I had wanted to do was to curl up in bed with the book I am currently reading. We did a bit more on Wednesday before spending the two days after that trying to solve the growing storage problem for the ‘stuff’ M had collected in recent years. It wasn’t easy because we were sticking to a budget.

Sunday (5 Oct) was the last day of the holidays. We went back to IKEA to try to solve my storage problem. M suddenly became very anti-social while we were at the store and we had to leave sooner than I expected. I was very cross with him and still am. Because I had to hurry, I didn’t get to carefully decide my options. M is a very considerate person most of the time but he is also capable of behaving like a very spoilt devil occasionally. He was apparently trying to seek reassurance because he was worried that I would leave the apartment in its messy state. Speaking of that, I better get back to tidying up the bombsite. At the rate that I am going, the living areas will be nice and tidy ‘soon’. Blogging about the progress may speed things up a bit.