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Five giddy tigressy things February 29, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Memes & Tags, Thoughts & Scribblings , 10comments

Amazing how the internet and specifically blogging keeps us all in contact, so much so that a friend of mine, who recently left my company for greener pastures elsewhere, still found time to give me this friendship award.  Thanks dearie!

And if that ain’t enough, she bestowed on me another tag, one that is rather inquisitive, I would say, for it asks for five facts about me.
*drumroll please!*

 

Fact Number ONE

My husband thinks I have a condition known as hoarding, and he calls me a hoarder. I beg to differ. It’s just that I feel an emotional attachment to everything I own or anything people give me. Things I can’t bring myself to throw away include:

And I also used to keep all the flowers I have ever received…well, up to the point when they started growing mould, of course. My hubby, on the other hand, is a *thrower*, and loves throwing things away. A case of opposites attracting, don’t you think?

Fact Number TWO

I have a penchant for good customer service, especially in restaurants where they charge me SERVICE TAX. In fact I have had rather strange experiences with these service people, the recent one being at Friday’s in Queensbay Mall.

Me (ordering food) : …and my boy will have a plate of the chicken spaghetti.
Waitress: Chicken or beef, ma’am?
Me (staring at her blankly): I just told you CHICKEN spaghetti, right?

Their “chicken or beef” response is a typical textbook response to anyone who orders spaghetti. I order it all the time for Ethan, so I know. I had wanted to cut to the chase by specifying the exact option I wanted, but obviously she wasn’t listening.

Later that night, while my hubby and I were chatting away, the same (dumb) waitress came from nowhere, dumped a plastic bag of takeaway food on our table, right in front of us, and walked off without saying a word. It was only after we had called her back that she realized it was for the table next to ours. Well, the least she could do was to say *something* when she dropped the package, right?

Fact Number THREE

I feel the need to fold every item that comes out of the washer before I use it. Be it an article of clothing, a piece of hanky or the bedsheet, everything needs to be folded first, whether or not they will be ironed and hung up later. I was brought up to believe that if I wear clothes that weren’t folded beforehand, I would end up stupid. Hey..maybe this belief bears some truth to it, you know…8A’s in the SPM? Eh? Eh?  *nudge* *grin*

Fact Number FOUR

I pride myself in successfully breastfeeding Ethan for two years. It was a long arduous journey filled with ups and downs but I can finally pat myself on the back and give myself a treat for a job well done. Nowadays, I tend to be the breastfeeding consultant to people whom I come into contact with, most recently my two sisters-in-law. I tend to be naggy when it comes to breastfeeding though, but hey, it’s something I am very passionate about…… breastfeeding, not nagging.

Fact Number FIVE

Come this March 8th, I will be doing my duty as a citizen of Malaysia by casting my vote.  Irks me to no end when I find out there are people who can’t be bothered to vote, or some can’t even be bothered to register themselves as voters!  I’m not talking about people who just hit 21, but these are 30-year olds!  All the time in the world to go for movies, shopping, clubbing, but can’t even find a few minutes to register as voters!  Sheesh!! This would mean they would have already missed out on two general elections!  SIGH…anyway…just letting off some steam here.

Oh yeah, must remember to pass this tag on. So I am tagging:

Rinnah
Paris
Sting

C’mon baby let’s get away February 26, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Close to Heart & Home, Relax & Celebrate , 19comments

I’m back from my very short two-night escapade to KL..no..more like Damansara because that’s where we were most of the time anyway.  In short, it was a very fruitful and eventful trip, the excitement of which started even before we left Penang on that Saturday morning.  My hubby noticed the air pressure in one of the rear tyres of our car was diminishing more so than the rest, and it was a good thing that he noticed a nail stuck to the tyre right before we left.  Not wanting to tempt fate, and taking this as a sign from God, we drove to the tyre shop and had it patched.  We decided to have dim sum brunch after that since we were already hungry.

Off we headed for KL after that.  Surprisingly though, Bidor still called out to us, and we simply had to stop for a quick bite there.  The lure of the Pun Chun wan ton mee was too strong, even though it is now priced at a hefty RM5.25 per plate! The quaint little town of Bidor was already decked in election posters and banners, much more so than in Penang, I would say.

This time round, hubbs and I decided to take Monday off from work, so we had more time to spend in the Klang Valley.  It was a good thing we did, because we managed to achieve a lot of things:

 

 

Alrighty now…it’s high time for me to lose weight.  Hopefully before the polling date…

Googoo gaaga gurgle coo February 19, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Close to Heart & Home , 26comments

I have a new title to my name now. Someone will soon be calling me “Kor kor” - Hokkien for Aunt. This morning, at 9:51a.m., a beautiful baby boy was born to my brother and his wife. All of 3.26 kilos, and every bit a bundle of immense joy, my nephew Collin said hi to the world and of course to his proud parents. See how comfy the little one looks in his crib, all warm and bundled up?

Scrap Credits
Cupid Said freebie Kit & Alphas from retrodiva {designs}™
Christmas Bling paper from Lindsay Jane Designs
Stacked frame from Kim B’s Designs
Ilétait une foi stars from Petit Moineaux

Collin decided to greet everyone a Happy Chinese New Year, and made it in time to be eligible for an angpow too. Hi Collin… Kor kor will be coming to see you soon, with an angpow, okay? :D *hugsss*

Much ado about my mojo February 19, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Blogging, Thoughts & Scribblings , 10comments

At first I wanted to blog about the Amazing Race Asia, but procrastination took control of my life and before I knew it, we were already watching the finale on Valentine’s night, where Adrian and Collin were declared winners. It all went down to the final roadblock where Rovilson did not manage to put the flag to the country fast enough and where it proves that paying attention to all those erasers with flags on them when we were little paid off. I kinda felt sorry for Marc and Rovilson for not winning, because those two practically owned the entire race. They injected humour and entertainment in a race filled with stress and even more stress. If ever I participated in TARA, I would want to play it like Marc and Rovilson did. My hubby did state the obvious when he remarked “But they didn’t win…”, but you know, it was the way they ran the race that I want to emulate. Still, I am very pleased that Adrian and Collin won, despite the adversities and hardships they faced. Congratulations guys!

So now my dose of weekly reality teevee will just be American Idol (down to the final 24 this week!) and America’s Next Top Model, which is a program I totally enjoy watching, together with Ethan boy too, of course. Too bad that while I was googling for the picture of ANTM, I accidentally discovered that the one shown on Channel V now has already been show in the US…. so I found out who won… shucks.


Photo credits

While chatting with Rinnah yesterday, I complained to her that I had lost my blogging mojo, save for updating Ethan’s blog. The dry spell had finally gotten to me, as it had some other bloggers too. We both attribute this loss of interest to the Chinese New Year break. Too many angpows, nothing to write? Have to wait for chap goh meh to be over first? Go figure. I can’t even bring myself to blog about the upcoming elections. This year, I will be voting in Penang for the first time in my voting history. The previous times, I had done my duty as a citizen back in Ipoh. The poster war will be starting soon, I expect. Candidates are probably busy choosing their most trustworthy and honest-looking pictures to print on banners and posters that they hope can withstand the wind, the sun and the rain. So far, I have only seen BN’s banners with the tagline “Keep Reinventing” sprouting out all over the island. I just printed out the details of my voting venue yesterday and am happy that it will be held at a school which is very close to where I stay…within walking distance too, if I am hardworking enough.

Oh, by the way, I am still craving yee sang and hope to lou at least one more time before chap goh meh comes around.

Snap, crop, arrange..voila! February 12, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Close to Heart & Home, Ethan , 25comments

Three days before the Chinese New Year, I received the finished product of the personal project which I had been working on for months on end. Forty pages of photos of Ethan all captured in a 30cm x 30cm black hardcover-bound photobook, worth every second of the time I had spent laboring over it.

Never mind that I had to redo some of the pages over and over again because I was not completely satisfied with them initially.
Never mind that it took me weeks to finally get in touch with someone from Photobook to iron out the details of the order.
Never mind that I had to upload the photobook file at least four times because they got corrupted every time I did the upload.
Never mind that I had to follow up with Photobook to find out if my order would be able to arrive before Chinese New Year, only to find out that they had already shipped it out two days before my inquiry was made.
Never mind that I had to personally call the courier company to follow up on the status of the shipment, only to be told that they had gone to my house and claimed that no one was around. And never mind that no notice was left to inform me that they had tried to deliver the parcel.
Never mind that my hubby and I had to drive all the way to the courier company to pick up the parcel, because we were only too anxious to see the finished product.
Never mind that we had to wait a further 10-15 minutes before we finally held the parcel in our hands.

Because all this trouble was so worth it. I decided to create a photobook with Ethan’s photos after Jazzmint recommended Photobook over Pixart. At that time, my Pixart project was almost done, but I still took her word for it, and am happy to say that I have never looked back since. Compared to Pixart, I must say that the lamination quality of Photobook’s albums are way better. Just seeing the digital scrapbooking I created come to live on the pages of the photobook is really inspiring. In fact, I am seriously thinking of starting on another one for the next two years culminating with Ethan’s fourth birthday, and hubbs even suggested creating one for our wedding photos too.

My New Year reflections February 11, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Relax & Celebrate , 18comments

 

After five days of non-work, coming back to the boring, humdrum life of the office seems such a waste. Well, we are all still very much in the festive spirit of the Chinese New Year, and there are still ten more days to go of angpow giving, and receiving (for some)…and cookie eating…

I’ve already lou-sanged four times thus far, and still counting. Every time has been different from the one before. This year I have tasted vegetarian yee sang, jellyfish ones, salmon ones and the conventional fish kinds. Of course, eating yee sang is merely the tip of the iceberg where my Chinese New Year food experience is concerned. It started with the reunion dinner in Ipoh, where I stuffed myself full of scrumptious home cooking from Mom in Ipoh. Felt like a cow after that. The tau-ewe-bak dish I had cooked and brought from Penang was also added to the array of dishes that filled the table. Then I also had cookies non-stop. We traveled to Taiping on the first day of the New Year where there were so many varieties of pineapple tarts beckoning to me. With all this eating and stuffing, it is no wonder that I found my red cheongsam a little bit snug today. SIGH.

It was a splendid feeling to be back with our loved ones for the New Year. Even though the weather was scorching hot ala Chinese New Year weather, and even though I lost one of the hooks on my brand new pair of silver dangling earrings just less than thirty minutes after I had put them on. Yesterday, I checked with Forever 21 (where I had bought them from) but they told me they don’t carry *spare parts* for their earrings. Guess I shall have to convert the earrings into a pendant or something.

Yes, the balik kampung experience really was a joyful occassion, save for the traffic jams here and there and even though on the morning before we left Taiping for Penang on the second day of New Year, we discovered that the back of our car had been vandalized. Someone with really really itchy hands had scratched the surface of our car, and spelt out the “HA” on the boot. Probably wanted to wish us Happy New Year or something. We are just thankful no one was hurt though.

We returned to the comfort of our home after a marathon day of visiting relatives in Penang.  We had two whole days to laze around and enjoy.  And since it was still the New Year period, I got myself a brand new 2.2 liter electronic rice cooker.  Here’s to more days of chicken rice ahead!  Is it bad that I am already looking forward to the next stretch of holidays?

Usher in the mousey year! February 6, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Close to Heart & Home, Relax & Celebrate , 17comments

Have you gotten everything ready for Chinese New Year yet? Got all the pongkams (mandarin oranges), cookies, pussy willows and cherry blossoms? Got all the spring cleaning done? Got all the new new red red “ong ong” clothes and underwear washed and ironed out? Heh.

Me? I’m almost there…

The rush to get all the necessary new ringgit notes has finally paid off. All the running around from bank to bank, taking numbers and waiting in line, … an annual routine task for me, I’d say… well, since I earned the right the give angpows away, that is. And finally, on Monday, I reap my harvest…Love the crisp feeling and smell of the new notes. Love how smooth they feel in my hands. Love it love it love it! Next up. Packing them into angpow packets for distribution.

Yes, Chinese New Year is definitely a time of giving and of eating. This year, we will spend our Chinese New Year reunion in Ipoh, my hometown. This is the first time I will be back in Ipoh for the reunion since I got married about three years ago. So definitely a lot of eating involved there. Looking forward to the yee sang, jiu hoo char and too thor th’ng. Very the festive indeed.

Like all previous Chinese New Years, we have also prepared New Year hampers for our parents. We also gave a similar one to Ethan’s baby sitter. Preferring instead to have our hampers consist of nutritious food items instead of sweets and candies, we got these hampers from Eu Yan Sang, nicely wrapped and delivered to our doors. Love the sparkle and joy on the faces of our parents when we present it to them. Actually I am secretly wishing someone would give one to me too… hehehe…

So, to everyone celebrating Chinese New Year, a very Keong Hee Huat Chye, Kong Hei Fatt Choy and Xing Nian Kuai Le to you. To everyone traveling home on the roads, drive safely and remember to rest if you are tired. And to everyone enjoying the holidays, have a good well-deserved rest.  Now, bring on the food!

Ratty, prosperity feelings February 1, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Thoughts & Scribblings , 21comments

 

I have a good feeling about the year of the Rat.  I think it’s gonna be a prosperous and fruitful year ahead for me.  Didn’t go and check what the year has in store for me in terms of the Chinese animal zodiac, but I can just feel it.  In the months leading up to the auspicious Chinese New Year,  I have received very clear indications that lead me to believe what I feel is true.  And I am quite certain they mean something.

Why, just last night, I received a text message on my cellphone that said:

Pengumuman dari Petronas Mlys, TAHNIAH!  No. simcard anda tlh memenangi Undian bertuah cek tunai RM15000.  Sila hubungi: 006285656237997. Terima kasih.

(Translation: Announcement from Petronas Mlys, Congratulations!  Your simcard has won the lucky draw for a cash cheque of RM15000.  Please call: 006285656237997.  Thank you.)

There is so much I can do with the RM15000, I thought.  Off the top of my head, more new dresses?  New shoes?  Put it into some investment vehicle?

Well, not to mention that RM10,000 cash cheque I was promised in the text message I received last December too, in some contest I don’t remember participating in.

TAHNIAH. SimCard anda telah memenangi undian bertuah Cek tunai RM10000 dari peraduan CELCOM sila hubungi: 006285696012222.  Terima kasih.

(Translation: Congratulations.  Your SimCard has won the lucky draw for a cash cheque of RM10000 from a CELCOM contest please contact: 006285696012222.  Thank you.)

I wonder what would happen if I were to call that number.  How many people do you think would actually believe that they had won and call that number?

So what do you think?  Are these foretelling indicators of good things to come?

“Tong tong-tong C-H-I-A-N-G!!!!” *offers plate of “kum” and “ong lai“*

…oh and it MUST certainly mean something that Ethan adores Mickey Mouse too, right?