Archive | Hobby RSS feed for this section

On a Buying Spree

29 Oct

I daresay both M1 and M2 inherited the reading bug from me. Certainly it must be me because hubby is not an avid reader like me, who’d read until 3.00am in the morning. Whenever hubby has a book in front of him—and I have seen it on several occasions—he does not make it pass two pages and muted snores can be heard shortly; except maybe for one book, ‘Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds’ by Ping Fu, he read it in one day while I took three days. The point is, no matter how tired I am, I never doze off with a book in hand and neither do my girls. So, yea… they inherited the reading bug from me.

During my dinosaur era, I was reading Trixie Belden, the Famous Five, Five Find-Outers and Nancy Drew. But sadly, my girls are not into these characters and my collection is left to collect more dust.

Children these days, I discovered, are more into authors besides the series. M1 totally enjoys the Percy Jackson series (by Rick Riordan) and insist that the books must be the US edition because they have nicer cover designs than the UK edition. She awaits the latest release, US edition of course.

M2, on the other hand, enjoys quirky titles with lots of doodles everywhere, big fonts and peppered with typographic creativity.

On Sunday, we finally visited the bookstore, Kinokuniya, in KLCC. It was an all-girls outing as hubby chose to go to the CIMB Classic golf tournament at KLGCC instead. So there we were at the bookstore, touching this book and that book. We were in heaven!

However, M1 was disappointed to see the latest release of Rick Riordan’s was not of the cover she anticipated! Brought down to earth, she said we must still go in search for the new book with its US edition cover. But until that happens, I felt her disappointment and decided to allow her to pick up some other titles instead. Since school exams are also over, I’d rather have both girls reading more than to be online all the time.

I must have been deprived of shopping lately (buying grocery does not count) for I decided it was a book-buying day and we all ended up with 2 or more books each.

M1 picked up a novel, a doodle journal and a Pokemon encyclopedia; M2 had the same doodle journal too and an Adventure Time encyclopedia while I picked up ‘Are You a Cow?’ another Sandra Boynton board book to add to my collection, a Nora Roberts two-in-one read and a more serious title: ‘Lean in’ by Sheryl Sandberg.

We capped the outing with a scrumptious lunch before hurrying home to enjoy the books! It was one of those rare good shopping days and good quality time spent with the girls.

Image

The prized purchases. M2 has totally wrecked her journal, see the ripped page sticking out?

Related articles

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Reading Again!

9 Sep

Somewhat disillusioned with the recent discovery on Level 410 in Candy Crush and coupled with the frustration, I decided to pick up a book again to read. Of course it is a book by my favorite author.

The last book that I attempted to read, Pompeii by Robert Harris, just could not hold my attention. I didn’t go beyond ‘Hora duodecima’…

Maybe there’s still a chance for me to catch up in the reading race with this renewed reading mood.

Tags: , , , ,

Some Goodness in Friends

9 Aug

Thursday kicked off a long four day weekend and I had a lunch appointment with a girlfriend who came back from Singapore. The hubby decided to chauffeur me to the mall, along with M1 and M2 in tow, so that they could go have lunch at the mall too on their own while I have my catch-up girl-talk luncheon. The plan was to also go to the bookstore to buy some books so that M1 has something else to keep her occupied during the holidays other than the many seasons of ‘Friends’ that she has been watching. She’s at Season 6 now. As for M2, it is an excuse from her revision regiment.

Two hours went by quickly and all things accomplished, we came home. Then routine kicked in: M1 in front of the computer watching more ‘Friends’, M2 at the dining table back at her revision, the hubby doing forty winks and me, well, crushing candies.

That night, M1 proudly showcased her book purchases again. “Oh my God! You bought Pride and Pre-Juice?” M2 asked incredulously.

“Pre-Juice? Duh! it’s Pride and —‘Prej-uh-dis’—… Prejudice,” M1 pronouncing the word clearly for the giggling M2. Well, it is a big word for M2. There were other titles too that M1 acquired, A Tale of Two Cities and Peter Pan, to add to her collection of other classics.

I was in their room then and it made me curious why would M1, at her age, has chosen such classics to read for I did not read these until I was much older and in college. I remember we had to read and dissect ‘The Great Gatsby’ (which M1 has also read) with in-depth character analysis, storyline analysis and a whole bunch of other analysis in the Literature class. So boring!

Well, she revealed that in ‘Friends’, they talked about some of these classics and she wanted to read them. I guess being addicted to ‘Friends’ is not so bad after all! Looking at the bigger picture, it’s a good headstart to tackling Literature classes when she is college-bound. And way much better than her, occasionally mimicking Janice spouting out the trademark “Oh.. Mah… Gawd!” or breaking out the neigh “Chandler BING-G-G-G!!!” to no one in particular.

Image

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Quote

A milestone!…

1 Aug

A milestone!

Two thousand views so far! Thank you… thank you… keep on viewing.

Tags: ,

Let’s Climb a Tree

19 Jul

We have a lovely but skinny Frangipani tree at our back garden. One day the girls declared, “We wanna climb a tree!” And so the hubby indulged them as I watch their monkey acts from inside the living room.

Climb a tree? Hah! How sad my girls don’t know what climbing a real tree is all about as their antics brought back memories of me and my tree.

I grew up in a big house with an equally big garden. And there were trees, lots of trees. Thirty six of them. Sometimes, somethings in life you remember forever and this is one of them.

I remember going through a phase and would be counting every single tree in the compound, playing authority with a clipboard and going around the compound doing a census on trees. I don’t know why I did that but I was obsessed with it, doing it every evening. And of course, the result showed 36 matured trees. My mother loved her garden, full of flowers, plants and trees.

And I loved my tree. My tree was special; it was a matured mango tree and had sturdy branches snaking out as if it was creating a nest with spread out fingers. I would climb my tree every afternoon and sit there to daydream. The branches were so thick that I could lie down anywhere I fancy and stare at the leaves or beyond. One day while staring, I discovered caterpillars! Here, there, everywhere. Eeuuww. I stopped hanging out on my tree after that.

But the fact remains, today’s children hardly has the opportunity to experience what we experienced. Climbing trees and catching little fishes from the drain (as what the hubbby used to do) are deemed activities of the dinosaur era, for people like myself and the hubby. We may have one tree for the girls to attempt now but sadly our drains are all covered up. Development and time plus technology has rendered many classics to be obsolete today.

Image

Tags:

Can I Have a Camera?

19 Jun

Sometime early last year, M2 wrangled a camera from the hubby. Said she wanted to pursue photography and he obliged. He bought a decent three hundred Ringgit digital camera but sold it to her because since there were no exams and no targets to meet, one cannot simply be rewarded.

Undaunted, she whipped out the amount – saved tediously from all her weekly school allowance – and handed over the cash.

And so the photography craze began. There were pictures of mostly Rooney, her pet frog then, some drawings, the other pets and mundane stuff.

However, time passed and life caught up with homework and school assignments and the photography interest waned.

One day, hubby asked, “So how’s the camera? Any good pictures?” Silence. Then, “I stopped taking pictures. Can I sell the camera back to you?”

“Sell the camera back to me? Hmm. How much?” queried the hubby.

“Three hundred Ringgit,” M2 stated confidently.

“What?! Same price as you bought from me? You can’t do that. It is a used item now and should be cheaper,” argued the hubby.

“No. Now it comes loaded with pictures! So there’s value to it.”

Defeated, the hubby paid for the camera, value-added with an SD card loaded with pictures of Rooney, M2’s pet frog, her drawings, the other pets and mundane stuff.

Chortle….

Tags:

The Race is On!

19 Jun

At the start of this year, M1 challenged me to a race – to read 30 books by the end of the year! “Sure!” I said, after all I had a headstart, having completed ‘The Bride Quartet’ by Nora Roberts and a collection of more titles by her awaits me.

When M2 learnt about the challenge, she quipped, “Mummy, I wanna join the race but the books I ordered from Scholastics (at school) have not arrived. Can we go to the bookstore instead because I am so behind!”

You can tell my girls love to read.

Four months into the challenge, I made a wrong move as I picked up ‘Pompeii’ from a book fair as my book number eight. Let’s just say if the race was about the Candy Crush Saga, I’d win hands down.

Image

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Choosing the Name

12 Jun

It was hotly debated on Facebook with friends and bloggers on what I should call my site and it came down to two choices: Angienetics or Angieneering. And so far the pick is leaning towards Angieneering. I must say I am not an engineer but I’d like to think that all the documented anecdotes are engineered by my kids to spice up my life, hence Angieneering!

Credit must be given to an old friend, Meena P. for coining up this name. Thanks Meena.

Newer Entries →