I had set my alarm for 7.00am last night but the pesky lone mosquito woke me up at 5.00am and again at 6.00am. By 6.30am, I was wide awake. Oh well, I might as well wake up.
Yes it’s only Friday but we decided to make the long three-day weekend into a four day escapade by skipping school and work! The bags were all packed last night, the girls are excited and we are ready.
We are at KLIA now, waiting to board. Yay.
The week long holidays are over for the girls. I’d like to think they enjoyed the break thoroughly – sleeping late, eating a lot, sleeping in, watching reruns of Harry Potter (on the DVD), not studying and not mind going anywhere save for that day trip to eat seafood. However, I frown upon the sleeping habits. Oh well, none of this bad habit now that they are back to school.
As for me, everyday that passes by is an agony of sorts as far as Candy Crush is concerned. The new chapter has yet to open and I itch to jump forth from Level 635. It’s more than a week now and I’ve been playing Levels 608, 617 and 635 alternately to get more stars! Terrible, isn’t it?
And to add to the aggravation, Farm Heroes has been very trying. I was thoroughly challenged at Level 404 and had to use all the farm equipments (which I normally don’t) to bypass it, and found myself utilizing all my equipments so soon again for Level 407. I guess it gets tougher and tougher. Now stuck at 413. Sigh…
The long four day weekend is finally over and I am back to work. I have mixed feelings about it for I feel that I have grown, sideways. Ugh.
I have a scale in my bathroom and whenever I contemplate to stand on it, I am certain it smirks at me. At the same time, a little voice would whisper into my ear,“The scale never lies.” Ooh… That aggravates. The darn thing has an obvious crack line right over the scale dial and it has become a constant reminder that it has cracked under pressure, literally. If memory serves me well, I believe it was hubby who was the culprit. Nonetheless, I now refrain from standing on it as I cringe and face the sad fact that I need to do something about this ‘growth’.
Maybe I should play more golf to burn all those calories. But then again, lately, I have been drinking a lot of beer. And (no) thanks to the past four days of an unleashed gastronomic adventure, coupled with no gym sessions for the last two weeks, should I be surprised at the outcome? I hope my trainer would not be appalled to see me when we resume next week!
Sigh… While it has been good bonding with the family doing things together and all that eating, the setback from this is I have grown, sideways. Ugh.
We say goodbye to Batam today. It has been very enjoyable, with the plans and the people. I now look forward to going home to see M1 and M2 whom I must admit, we did not talk to the last several nights. It’s not that we have forgotten them but with our coming back late every night and them being an hour ahead, the timing was not good.
Anyway, I look forward to planning the next trip. Soon.
2013 – the end is here. As the world gets ready to say goodbye to it and usher in the new year, I must admit I am ready to say goodbye and hello at the stroke of midnight.
To sum it up, my 2013 has been mixed with ups and downs. Happiness, sadness, shock and delight were some of the emotions I experienced but not just limited to these words. Most moments were filed away at the back of my mind and the rest (and some) shared when I started this blog in June.
So, “Bye 2013 and here’s wishing all to an exciting Happy 2014 New Year!!!”
I cannot believe another year has gone by so fast! Wasn’t it just yesterday the whole family was visiting the US – the adults catching up with some of our dearest friends and the children seeing what I deem as my favorite places from my college days? Wait a minute, that was last year! Dang.
The past few days I was reminiscing about this time of the year and out of the blue, the song by Band Aid (Do They Know It’s Christmas?) popped into my mind! Wow. That was dinosaur years ago. Watching the music video when John Taylor (of Duran Duran) fleetingly appeared made my heart skipped a beat even after all these years. Sigh…
It’s such a classic and oldie now, that song.
This year I decided to host the family Christmas (eve) dinner, relieving my only sibling of this annual duty. I look forward to the usual happy, fun and boisterous occasion despite the reduced head count (the twins are away in college and the younger niece, at camp). The tree is up, the presents are in place, the wine chilled and the food prepared with love. This time of sharing will no doubt be cherished.
This year has been significant for me, in many aspects of my life. For starters, I tried Candy Crush (in March) out of curiosity and look what happened? I became so addicted to it, I qualify to be called a professional candy crusher. I also started this blog (in June) and have been going strong ever since. With 4,851 views and more than 200 ‘Likes’ so far, I must be doing something right.
This year also marked my M1 turning Sweet 16 and my M2 fairing well in her UPSR exam. Children aside, Hubby and I traveled a fair bit—not to new destinations—but to near and far and enough to keep our sanity in check to balance up the work stress that we face daily.
And this year I made more new friends compared to any past given year. Pretty unusual but then again, golfing friends are a unique breed and it’s nice that it has developed into wonderful friendships over many outings and dinners beyond the fairways and greens. I also rekindled old friendships, thanks to technology for making the world smaller and reachable. For all these, I feel truly blessed and yeah, it’s been a significant year for me.
So I’d like to end this significant year by wishing all—from the bottom of my heart—a happy Christmas and a merry New Year in its truest sense! Hope your 2013 was equally significant for you to reflect back in years to come with fond memories and a smile on your face.
Recently, I found my old Palm T device and decided to boot it up, which was a good thing for I discovered many recordings that I did of the two girls when they were very young.
Listening to the old voice recordings brought much laughter and memories back.
M2 was just kindie-going when she first learnt how to spell. I guess ‘RED’ is the first one a toddler learns in school. And along with it, they also learn how to spell their name.
It was at a family Christmas gathering that we put her on the pedestal, proudly to show off what she has learnt that first year.
“Spell your name,” I gently coaxed her.
Loudly and confidently, she went,“R-E-D. Mabel Red!” Surprise caught everyone then laughter broke out in the family.
“Mabel red?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“Yes. I am Shiny Red Apple,” she beamed at me. Well, it was Christmas, spirits were high and happy, we all had a good laugh about it.
Ahh… Such memories.
M2 is twelve this year (how time flies!) and no, we won’t put her on the pedestal this coming Christmas.
School holidays are always tough to manage when we have to work and the girls don’t have school. The year-end school holidays has started and hopefully, both M1 and M2 will find things to occupy their minds until school resumes in January. After all, they are now older and technology is at their disposal. But it will be a different story if we go on a holiday.
When they were 6 and 10 years old, we used to send them over to grandma’s daily when we did not have a lived-in maid (then) to care for them while we went to the office.
Being girls and hanging out with their cousin sisters, they did this to M2…
M2 subjected to the new hairdo!
And got carried away and ended up with this!
Another angle…
I don’t think they will resort to this these days though…
Yes I must say I am getting better at Candy Crush than ever! The last two updates have been conquered before the new update is released. A few nights ago, I unexpectedly crossed Level 440 and tickets has also come forth from my fellow candy crushers to move on, on the laptop. Currently, I am at 445, playing it only at home after work but Zookeeper Battle is still on the iPad, at work, at home, in the car…
My fiercest competitor had surpassed me earlier, having captured the trophy at the last level and recaptured the trophy from me at the level prior. Should I take on the challenge to try to win it back? Nah.
After my holiday in Bali, I decided it’s not the trophy that matters after all, but just ploughing on. It’s good enough to be good at this, being way ahead, there’s no need to have that showcase trophy.
Holiday resorts are fun places to be. They are your temporary home for the next few days when you go on vacation.
A typical garden view room
Over the years, we’ve traveled to many and afar. And I noticed over the years, beach resorts have evolved from carpeted floors to tiled floors. I guess this makes sense for keeping the maintenance cost down. Imagine the wrath of an angry holiday maker the management has to deal with, if the carpet was stale smelling with salt/chlorine water or full of sand in its plush state to irritate the naked toes.
Last weekend, hubby and I decided to escape from the children and do what we enjoy most: play golf. We drove out of town to this beach resort that offered an attractive golf and spa package. So three rounds of golf we played and 2 spa sessions we enjoyed, besides the cheap seafood.
Thank goodness we didn’t have to cross the water on this Par 4.
We had steamed fish. Very fresh!
But the pleasant outing had an ugly accident by the second night. We came back from a great seafood dinner and hubby dropped his phone in the hotel room! It landed on the damn tiled floor and the screen of his Google Nexus smartphone cracked. Ouch. The damage was intense, the pain of the damage even more so.
My heart bled for the phone too….
Now, if there was carpet, the damage would be minimal and not so painful. But no, it was tiles, hard tiles that totally did the phone in.
So now, holiday resorts are not that fun anymore…
Angieneering 
Remarks