Suddenly .....

hubby decided that we should get away during the Good Friday long weekend ... I woke up this morning to see him surfing the net desperately looking for places we could go on such short notice ...

He decided on Genting cos it's near and it'll be cheap .. we only have the 3 days anyway.

Then he rushed down with the 3 girls to People's Park to book the package ...

WTH.

I quickly went online and applied for passports for myself and the 4 girls ... Lauren still has her valid US passport .. but I think it'll be easier if she has a Singapore passport like us ... so I applied for one for her too.

Gosh, the passports alone came to $350.

The travel package we took came to another $600 ... hubby intends to change about $500 Sing to ringgit ... so our very cheap holiday will come up to about $1500 ...

Huh.

I'm thinking next time we either try a cruise or a trip to Phuket ...

No we did not ...

set up a mango stall ... yes, hubby did bring back quite a number of mangoes ... but he distributed it among a couple of people like his boss etc and we ended up with about 10 for ourselves ...

Spent Saturday morning driving around distributing them and then we headed off to Vivocity for lunch ...

Vivocity is getting crowded. Even though it's relatively HUGE mall ... when it gets crowded ... you can really see it and feel it ... and after walking around for a while, we headed home. Hubby says we need a short vacation somewhere to get away from the weekend crowd so we're thinking maybe Genting. I haven't been to Genting since the early 1990s ... wow. We went together then, hubby and me ..

Well, we have to go apply for passports first ... mine expired awhile ago as did Claudia's. I never applied for one for Emily and Calista (of course) and Lauren only has her American passport which while valid - I'll just go ahead and get her a Singapore one as well.

Yay! Hubby is back ...

Hubby was supposed to be back today ... but he surprised us all by comin back last nite ... :) The girls were ecstatic to have their Daddy home and I was happy too :)

He came back with mangoes too !!

Germs are EVERYWHERE ...

and they cause you to fall sick .. I remember when I was in Clovis, NM with Claudia at a restaurant one day ... my girfriend was with us and Claudia refused to sit on the seat cos there was a small black spot on it. She was about 3.5 years old at the time and she asked me to clean it for her before she sat down. I had a hard time convincing her that it wasn't dirt but just a black mark on the chair. My friend with me at the time, laughed and blamed me for making Claudia so paranoid about dirt ... (I was a clean freak back in those days ... when I only had ONE child) ...

I was and still am paranoid about germs ... I insist that all of us when we come home from an outing etc, wash our feet and most definitely our hands too. Whenever the kids do something or want to eat something, I have made it a habit for them to remember to wash their hands thoroughly. When we're outside, wet wipes are used. They are almost constantly washing their hands ... and are constantly being reminded NOT to touch their face or put their fingers in their mouth, and you know what? I seriously believe it has helped in them NOT fallin ill so often AND when one of them does, about half of the time, it doesn't get passed around. I also disallow sharing of sippy cups and such because I know that Emily is too young to tell me if she has a sore throat and I do not want her passing her germs around to her sisters cos more kids being sick is a bigger pain. Claudia and Lauren have been told numerous times NOT to share food or drinks with their friends in school (cos you don't know if they're ill I tell them).

I often tell my maid that we should be shareholders in Pigeon .. since we use their wipes like it's free. Lol. Stanley used to think I was taking it too far and being paranoid, but he too has realized that it makes sense to be cautious since we have a couple of kids .. less kiddies fallin ill equal less pediatrician's bills .. lol. Besides, I have told him that wet wipes are cheaper than ONE trip to the pediatrician.

Those bloodsuckers.

I like Vivocity ...

cos it's nice and big and spacious. Carpark too.

We had a nice afternoon strolling around and shopping. Got a couple of things for Claudia and Lauren at Fox Kids .. and get this, 2 camis for Claudia from Forever 21 (cos their stuff is like TEENY, man !! -- got her the tops in "S" size) .. I also managed to get 2 tops from Marks and Spencers for myself .. I seriously need to get some more clothes .. will go to Dorothy Perkins and have a look see ..

And I also had my watch battery replaced. Yay!! This watch was given to me by hubby when we were dating .. yup, it's a really OLD watch but it looks and is working just fine. The guy who replaced the battery claimed that Swiss made watches tend to last .. yeah man .. it's like freaking 18 years old !!!

Anyway .. I remember he got it for my birthday and he had been saving his allowance for a really long time to get it for me .. I was aghast that he had spent such a huge amount on a watch (the watch was about $800) ... lol !!

Infant care ??

The gathering at Snowger's (aka Maureen) place at Redhill was a chance to see all the babies and finally put a face to the nick on our forum thread DEC 2008 Mummies ... lol :)

These are just some of the babies there .. I think there was easily about 20 babies with mummies (and some with daddies) there .. it was nice being able to chat face to face with each other ..

Now ... let's see WHICH of us will be going for the next round ... hahahah .. eh, not me ok?!! I have CLOSED MY FACTORY ... REALLY !!!

It was no contest ..

Between the Baby Fair at Takashimaya and the IT Fair at Suntec ... I.T. won hands down .. I love gadgets and everything I.T. .. anyway, I needed to get antivirus software for my PC and Netbook - my subscription is expiring and so I trooped down yesterday to see if I could get it cheaper than $144 .. (that was what I was asked to pay when I tried to renew my antivirus subscription online) .. you're freaking kidding me, man .. $144???

I was right .. they were having a special offer just for the show and my antivirus software came to $71 ..

Yay!! that is like half off !! It was so worth the effort going down there and braving the crowds and car park queue. I love the IT Fair .. I don't spend tons of money there .. well, I would if I could ... but then Stanley would yell the house down so I don't ... lol.

I walked around looking at some other stuff ... then we headed back to Carrefour. That was the other reason we needed to go to Suntec .. to buy groceries and also to pick up my photos at Fotohub. All in all, a very productive day :)

Oh ya, I brought 3 of my girls and my maid with me. I'm sure people must have been wondering what on earth this woman was doing at the fair with 3 kids ... and her maid but oh well, the girls are always happy to go out :)

un-freakin-believable ...

Better Vision obviously gets their soft toric contact lenses from Timbuktu ... must be cos even when I send my cousin stuff in the mail, it takes about 10 days to reach Den Haag in Holland. And that's with regular airmail via Singpost.

Better Vision's contact lens manufacturer probably is in Timbuktu and they send the ordered contact lens over to Singapore via camel then by slow-assed freight ship. It has to be ...

THREE WEEKS TO A MONTH?? Aw come on.

I was stupid to stick with them ... customer loyalty my ass. I should've scouted around and asked the other optical shops cos now, as I've just found out after callin up a few places today .. Spectacle Hut and Capitol Optical and Nanyang Optical all take about 3 days to a week to get toric contact lenses for their customers. At the most, 2 weeks, if it's OOS Capitol staff informed me.


I was fuming mad. It's not like the price difference was a lot. About the same. BUT for Better Vision, you wait till the cows come home .. oh, my bad .. I meant CAMELS.

Yes, I only have myself to blame .. and my blardy eyes. I have astigmatism hence the need for soft toric lenses instead of just regular contacts .. and my astigmatism is too high so I can't use monthly or daily disposable soft toric lenses .. Blardy hell,

Anyway, I called up Better Vision on Sunday (before I realized my mistake hence I wasn't angry yet at this point .. just agitated) to remind Joey (the lady who attended to me) to try and rush my order. She again informed me that it would be about 3 weeks .. I was really frustrated.

On Tuesday, I called up again .. this time I was already angry but since I didn't want them to purposely hold up my order (I want my contacts first THEN I'm going to do some yelling ... ) I decided to just get my details - my contact lens prescription as well as my prescription for my glasses ... cos I had already decided that this is the last time I am making my contact lenses and my spectacles there ...

I think either Joey realized this or the sheer thought of me BUGGING her up every few days till I got my contacts prompted her to say that she would give me a temporary pair of contacts to use till mine arrived. These were monthly disposable soft toric lenses .. same power BUT the astigmatism correction in these ones would be lower than my new permanent soft lenses since for disposables, these were the highest they could go.

Well, whatever. As long as I can drive and I don't look hideous, who cares about a little optical distortion ... LOL!

I rushed down this morning after dropping Lauren off to collect them (they were FOC - they better blardy well be .. damn cheaters) and quickly put them on ...

Yay !! .. I no longer have to HIDE !! And I can wear my sunglasses while driving again !!

I so can't wait till my new contacts arrive then I can at least tell them off and tell them that I'm never going back to them ... !!

So it finally happened ...

yea, yea .. so quite a number of my blog entries start off like that ... ie "So it finally happened ... " but it's the truth .. it DID finally happen ..

I washed my right contact lens down my sink.

Blardy blardy hell.

And while that in itself isn't such a big issue .. the real issue is that I have to wear my spectacles out in public till my new contact lenses are ready ..

which by the freaking way is in 3 weeks to a month's time ...

Damn it ... AND the new contacts cost me $320 .. money DOWN THE DRAIN, man ..

SIGH.

Back to my issues ... yes, I have a problem with wearing my glasses out in public.

Why, you ask?

Cos I look UGLY in them. REALLY. Thing is I can't drive without them, hell, I can't even SEE BIG OBJECTS in front of my face if I don't have them on. So now, I have to cancel all pending appointments and lunches with my friends and hideout at home till my new ones are ready.

Don't laugh.

me !!!

I was a couple of months old when this was taken .. my mum was 21 :) The 2 kiddies are my uncle and aunt ..

HELL is a four letter word ...

Yes, thanks to Daddy and Mummy's OCCASIONAL cursing of incompetent drivers on the road, I heard Lauren using the word "hell" in a sentence a couple of weeks back ...

SIGH.

I think she said "What the hell ...?" ... hahahah.

Of course, I scolded her and told her not to say "hell" again .. she agreed and that was that ...

Yesterday, we were in the car and she was saying that if we did bad things, we would go to the devil ..

I was stumped for half a second, then I realized she meant "hell" instead of "devil" ..

hahahah .. well, she wasn't wrong .. I did tell her not to say "hell" .. I just didn't tell her in what context she shouldn't say it in.

She's FOUR. Doubt she'd be able to grasp it.

So I had to amend my rule about no saying "hell" .. told her that she could not say the following;

1) What the hell ?!!
2) Go to hell
3) Why the hell did ........ ?

Hubby is off again ... this time to Thailand ..

nope, not to a touristy place though .. he'll be in Korat for the next 3 weeks or so. Bummer for all of us here, man :(

And the one week holidays are coming up so it's quite a drag that he won't be here to spend time with the girls ..

Plus it'll also mean that I will be THE DRIVER all by myself for the next 3 weeks .. now that's the sucky part ...

*sigh*