New Toy

Called vPost on Wed to enquire more about the delivery timing.... just so I could try to make sure that mum was around to receive it. If I missed this delivery, I would have to wait till Sat to get it from the post office but I was too excited to wait till weekend to try my loots! But their response was exactly like what hubby told me earlier on. If only hubby still working there, he'd have performed the same stunt he did 3 years ago - I bought a set of clip-on hair extension from UK & wanted it urgently. So hubby monitored my shipment & once it reached the processing centre (not sure what exactly it's called), he intercepted & got it just before COB! :P

Anyway, I still got my new toys that evening! :D

My Friday look. Colleagues thought I permed my hair!
It's supposed to be curlier but I 'un-curled' a lil as preferred it that way for a start.
The colleagues said it looked nice! Hee.

Jose Eber Pro Series Clipless Curling Iron

So these are the 2 hair sprays that caused delay in having my parcel...

Sedu Moisturizing Heat Protecting Boost

Sedu Beach Beauty Sea Salt Spray
The coconut scent is soo nice to smell! And it's effective in keeping my curls.

After more than 12 hours, the curls still looked ok;).

Love how easy the curls can be achieved. Just couldn't do it right in the past when I used curlers with lots of curling lotion.

Can't Wait !

Made 2 online purchases from different sites end of last month. Both with free shipping within US... so great, thought I'd use vPost again. The last time (but it's like 4 years ago?) was quite a pleasant experience & saved about half of the shipping costs if sent direct.

Told them to ship the 2 purchases together. Both were delivered to vPost USA without any hassle. But for 1 of the purchases, vPost asked for the Material Safety Data Sheet for the 2 haircare sprays I bought. Asked from the merchant, F, & we're told to contact their manufacturer. Called the manufacturer & after passing us around & putting on hold for more than 20 minutes, they said they couldn't provide as it's supposed to be F who'd provide. So we're extremely stuck... having my purchases stranded at vPost USA with F & his supplier refused to provide what was required. So grumpily we made a call to F & after another long round of on-hold music & then with us trying to explain our situation to them, they said would look into it & revert. When I previously bought one of such sprays from F & got it shipped direct to me, I didn't have any problem. Guess that's the advantage of paying more to the merchant for direct shipping.

We're contemplating to have the parcel returned to F & then shipped directly to us. That'd be another long process with additional costs. So thank God that after a few days, F came back with 1 MSDS... only for 1 of the 2 products. But we thought that's good enough.

And while we're corresponding with vPost on this matter for almost a week (with the different timezones, their responses were R-E-A-L-L-Y slow), without asking or notifying me, they 'silently' went ahead to send the other parcel of falsies to Singapore prior to receiving the MSDS of the other parcel. Hallo~? They don't listen to instructions!? So! Double shipping costs!!

SoOo upset. Thought would save us quite a fair bit by consolidating my purchases.. who knows! Ended up having to co-ordinate between various parties & take weeks to get my purchases. But have checked... we still save about S$40 on shipping. And I know, next time will only use vPost for dry items.

Got my box of falsies last Thurs... Happy:) And been tracking my F products & it's just reached Spore last night! :D Can't wait......

The French Label

Last year, before I returned to where I'm working now, Ben called from KL & said he planned to bring in a mid-market French label, Axxxx, as their KL/Spore franchisee. So he's looking for someone reliable to run the show for Spore's. Axxxx ever made its presence here years ago, in a boutique in Scotts Shopping Centre & I used to like this brand after buying a nice pair of pants. I also bought some pieces when I was in Paris. Their collection now is so different &I must say it's undoubtedly a good change! After a week's exchange of emails & smses, Ben came to Spore together with A's Managing Consultant, Ziad, from Paris.

It's an interesting afternoon. Ben, Ben's nephew (grandson of Sxxxxx Group who'd just graduated.. a humble & friendly young chap), Ziad & I had lunch in Paragon. After lunch, all we did was walking in the malls... Ziad was formally from Mango in Spain & being an expert in setting up new boutiques all over the world, he's here to observe the fashion trend & identify places with good human traffic flow that's suitable for A. It's fun talking with him... he seemed to have endless stories & jokes. He even said if I joined A, I'd be invited to the Paris fashion week or even some fashion shows in Milan;) Ziad was really bent on bringing A into Spore soon.
So we 'walked' Paragon, Ion, Ngee Ann City, 313, Mandarin Gallery & the last stop was Vivo. Moving around wasn't a problem as Ben had his Estima from KL & I just needed to give some road directions to the chauffeur. In the evening, hubby joined us for dinner at Vivo.

Hubby felt excited for me too. The half yearly buying trips to Paris seemed really attractive plus I've all along been interested in this line. But couple of days later, after all the WOWs & ecstasies of the possiblity of working in the fashion business, I thought about the number of hours I'd have to put in every day... including Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. It's not gonna be easy as manpower wouldn't be sufficient at the startup stage... it'd be like working office hours + retail hours (though could be flexible in the working hours). So I was like 50-50. I couldn't let go of the stable working hours yet I was greedy, couldn't resist the opportunity to do something I liked when it came my way.

We prayed about it & asked God to take control. Few weeks later, Ben called & said it's a no-go for the moment as he hoped he could focus on KL market first. Disappointed... yet I was very relieved that I didn't need to clock irregular/prolonged hours. God closed the door for me :) Then, since end last year I'm back to where I started 3 years ago.... after switching a few jobs, trying to find myself. So a 9-5 job is what I really cherish now and thank God, my health is getting better ;)

Recently I saw Axxxx in the fashion magazine. Ziad must have had brought in the brand (now selling @Robinson's) through someone else.

WWF

All thanks to Con... Hubby n I are now addicted to Words With Friends (mobile scrabble). Over the weekend we actually played 2 games (with each other) concurrently! Hee...

What's good about the game is we can play anytime anywhere n at the pace we want :)

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Mani Interest

The last 2 weekends I sorta experienced the life of a manicurist, hehe.

I DIYed gel nails!
A trip to MagicBoo, a beauty products wholesaler/retailer (great recommendation from hubby dearest!), led to a damage of about $100 & an interest in DIYing my nails.
Gathered a few other lacking items from Far East Plaza & voilà, this is my very own Gel Nails Kit! ;)

This my 2nd attempt. The 1st was quite a mess.. so I redid it 2 days later on Mon when we're both on leave.

This was done last Sat. Much better but still got lotsa room for improvement. The nail on my ring finger is actually an extension that I did. Not bad at all right? :)

Total bill for this kit - $240 (including the UV lamp that's @ a cheap price of $42). I just need to do 2 nice sets to break even... & I'm already 1 down, haa (hopefully it lasts at least for 3 weeks though)...

You see, once you start to do gel nails there's a high tendency you get hooked. Or is it a self-justification?:P For CNY & some other special occasion I think I'll still go to my manicurist as she does a really great job (but very ex.. + extension + french + Christmas/CNY surcharge = $140!). So on normal days when I just want my nails to look polished & maintenance free, this a good way ;)

But it's definitely no ez job. Thousands of kisses to my honey who's, as usual, so ever supportive of what I want to do... ran around with me in search of the missing products, not only once or twice... even in the late evening all the way from home to AMK! And staying awake into such 'early' hours just because his wifey has taken up a new interest & at exploration stage..

I'm very sure now hubby knows about gel nails even more than many ladies out there, hee!

Routines

Nowadays I'm so short of time. To consider that for the last couple of months we knock off on the dot & head home straight. The road condition is normally good before 6. After settling dinner, it's usually 7ish that's including getting our next day's breakfast which is taking more & more time to settle as we're out of ideas (of what to eat in the morning) since we're quite overdosed of the usual ham+cheese bun & such...

There seriously isn't much time left after we reach home. We'd only manage to catch 1 or at most 2 episodes of TVB drama while hubby gives me an hour of foot massage before we Zzzzz. Most of the weeknights, we sleep before 11pm because I try to wake up before 6 & hit CTE before 8 to save ERP charges. We've been paying $6.50 on a normal day (on some days when there's massive jam on CTE or we left home late we even paid $9.50!!!!!) till more than a month ago I needed to get to office early for a meeting. Have we realised the amount we could save from ERP! From $6.50 to S2.50... & a much smoother traffic.

Every day passes so quickly... before we know it, weekend is here. We spend every weekend together & it's always short & never enough.

Time passes so fast... week after week... & half of 2011 is gone now.

MBS weekend

A walk on a Fri evening :)

We'd a Korean dinner earlier just opposite my office but I was greedy. So we'd tea, cake & some snacks @ Beanstro

Birthday celebration on the following Sunday. Round 1 @ Bazin.

Presents for the June babes & dude.. Hee..

Round 2 @ High Society. Intriguing interior ;)

Spectacular

Today we're invited by Marina Bay Sands for a site visit followed by lunch. Impressed by their service... they actually provided transport to & from the hotel as well. Enjoyed the tour & the food.... the view was impressive ;) A lil embarrassing to say..... it's actually my 1st visit there! Hee...





Coincidentally, we're going there tomorrow & on Sun!

Great Ones

Weekends have always been great... especially if it's an extended one...

14-17 May

Started our long weekend with a bottle of ice wine ;)

K session + lunch @ K Suite on Sat

Spent the whole Sunday afternoon @ Tampines 1. Taking a pit stop & indulged in some NYDC ice cream :)

JB, here we come! After so many years, it's the first time we drove there. Decided to do so as we expected to get some bulky items (mainly mine). And traffic was considerably good since it's Mon. But the roads have changed so much... to think that we're once quite a connaisseur on JB roads.. haha. With the convenience of getting in with our own transport, we bought a lot.. including a box of Beard Papa (so much cheaper there) & some Coffee Bean cakes for our supper :P

Couldn't do without our usual Kim Gary lunch & Baskin Robins treat.

Early dinner @ Sushi King was so so only... but we like their Ginger Soda. It's surprisingly refreshing... nice!


We stayed home almost the whole of Tue. Beloved hubby did my long overdue lanyard. I'm the Design Director, he's the Operations Director, haha.

This one of the 2 done by hubby. It's so pretty... love it!! ;)

21-22 May

After 3 years, we're back to Flamingg Mangos for a great dinner on Fri night. The food was good & it's so near our home! And we'd 2 pint of Hoegaarden ;)

Our Sat totally filled with various errands & in the midst..........

We found a very tasty Tom Gha Gai (Thai coconut chicken soup) at Bishan's Mata Thai. Yummzz... It's just so hard to find a good one! But the pork knuckles was such a disappointment.

BR

Yay! BR is finally back! Hubby gave me a pistachio almond treat@ ;)

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HTC

3 weeks ago I gave up on my Samsung Galaxy S & switched to HTC. My Galaxy initially was great but didn't serve like a smartphone - sometimes it notified me of incoming emails but most of the time not.. & it took forever to get into FB. So we sold my Galaxy & bought Incredible S (I'm just not into iPhone). We're deciding between Desire HD and Incredible S & finally chose the latter due to the short battery life of HD.

It's so so much a breeze using HTC. Emails arrive promptly & pix on FB appear swiftly.. A big Plus - a double-LED flash for the 8MP phone cam.. Yay!

1 week after I bought my HTC, hubby dearest converted to a HTC user too.. Hee! He sold his iPhone 4 for $650 & topped up only $10 to get a new Incredible S.

So far we're still having fun with our phones :)

Looking forward to ...

Yet another long weekend! Hubby & I will be taking the Mon off work... so it's a 4-day break! It's really addictive :P

Only Tues now.... can't wait!

Happy weekend & Mum's Day! :)

On Sat, hubby's buddy, Thomas, celebrated birthday for his 2 year-old son, Javier. So we spent a couple of hours at his AMK home.

Dinner with inlaws & family & relatives last night @ Geylang Prawn-Fishing Restaurant (Guillemard Village, formerly Singapore Badminton Hall)


Pretty red super roses!
One of the cousins won 99 roses in a Mother's Day radio contest.. & shared with all the ladies at the dinner. Hee!

Adorable lil Kate :)

Thought we'd have missed the initial part of the polling results but nope... after we reached home & got everything done, we still waited for nearly an hour. Stayed up till 2am & we surrendered. Didn't manage to watch the exciting ones...

Surprised mum with a bouquet yesterday. She loves lily! As she's not into eating recently (still on the way to recovery but thank God, the TCM works well in her), we just went for Hans breakfast after church service & the flowers.

In the evening, bro & family came & we'd dinner together with mum. Bro treated us to salted egg crabs... nice!

Another Long Weekend

2 long weekends consecutively...... how I hope it's like this every week! Ha..

Another matter worths thanking - mum's alright. She's been complaining about having headache and sleepless nights since last year. But in the recent couple of months she even said she been having unbearable headache every day. So intense that she'd wake up from her sleep just before dawn for the last 2-3 weeks. She couldn't really sleep plus the intolerable headache, it doesn't take much to think about the misery she's going through. Late Feb some signs began to surfaced & we guessed that those were the adverse effects of the red pill she been taking for about half a year. I googled & in fact, a whole long list of side effects was showed on screen! Hence mum went back to the doc who, didn't seem shock, just had her medicine changed. But hubby & I were still full of doubts... is he trying to treat mum as a lab rat???

Mum has stopped her medication for about a month after much nagging from us. Her insomnia & other side effects didn't cease. She switched to TCM but didn't seem to help. So last week hubby & I decided to bring her to the one I go to. It's ex & we always have to wait for a long time but as long as it's helpful.

Her health problems have caused me lots of stress & worries.. especially when she started to suspect she's problems with her brain. I'd been telling her there's nothing to worry about as it's mainly the side effects of her past medication... so just needed to keep a relaxing mind & try to recuperate through the TCM she been taking. But of course, she's the one who's suffering the pain, it's easier for me to say. Then on Thurs she decided to see doc who later called & informed me she's sending her to the nearest A&E, which was the new hospital, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. For a moment, I did feel a lil guilty for taking mum's health issue too lightly.

As I couldn't leave office early, hubby rushed to hospital to take care of the registration & all. And mum had to be admitted to do CT scan, blood & urine tests. Thank God that all the results came out as normal. It's a big relief. They said she's having tension headache (ok that's when they couldn't find the cause...)

The next day, hubby & I took afternoon leave to bring mum home. After that, we went for very late lunch & then made a trip to Orchard for me to do pedi. We really needed a break :)

Thank God that I've such an supportive hubby.... I know I sound useless but I can't imagine handling mum's all alone. He's as concerned about mum as I am.... and our weekends were spent bringing her to the docs/TCMs & moving around to acquire all possible solutions in the hope of helping mum to sleep better & ease her pain.

God is really good to me:)

Purchases

Besides bringing back more fats on us, I've done quite a bit of shopping. Poor hubby couldn't really find great buys... he only managed to buy 2 items.

Very nice almond cookies. Gave my colleagues some... at first they're not too interested but after eating they loved it. Chunks of almonds with melt in your mouth cookie. Hand-carried 2 boxes (24pcs in each) back & still not enough!

When mum went to HK last year, she bought a pack of 公仔面 for us & I find it nice. So we brought 2 packs back;)

Picked some alcohol from DFS on our return - Chabot ice wine

Bailey's with a thermal bag as free gift. And 6 bottles of Hoegaarden :)

Great buys from Argyle Centre (旺角中心).S$8-S$10 per piece except the middle one (about S$5+).

My favourite buys, except for the first piece (@S$12). The cardigans were @S$5+ each only!!

Pants @S$10 each. The light grey piece looks nice & is comfy but the black 1 doesn't fit too well. Need to find a way to improve it.

Hubby's polo tee & my blouse... both, unbelievably, @S$2 each!!!

Accessories @$3! Bought for Con & June too. & hubby's cuff links @ S$10 ;)

Sabrina asked us to help get this ointment (平安膏) for her hubby, KT. We bought for ourselves too. It's really quite good so we got a dozen for ourselves too, hehe.