Watch this space

Doug and I are frantically trying to finish up a book we are contractually bound to deliver by midnight 31 Dec...we have a few more chapters to go. Sash has been strapped in front of the TV and forced to watch that screen while we watch our laptop screens (poor kid). We will hopefully resurface on 1 Jan, say hello to Sash, and update this blog. In the meantime, Happy New Year and may 2008 bring you joy, laughter and peace.

Green

Sash's favourite word of the month is green...

Note: The link will take you to Google videos

Stormy weather: Part II

I have been shovelling, just so that when Doug gets home he will be able to reach the door...

So far I have shovelled the driveway twice. That mound of snow you see, that's not even the half of it. The other half is on my neighbour's yard. I know, I know, I am breaching snow shovelling etiqutte, but I will plead ignorance based on the fact in KL there are only 2 seasons..wet and dry. Also they have left for Florida for Christmas. I hope it rains. I know, not very Chrismassy of me but it is still snowing outside and evidence of my shovelling is dissapearing by the minute. Doug's flight was delayed but he arrived a few minutes ago and now he is in line with 100 other people waiting for a cab. I would go pick him up but then I would have to shovel the car out...so..hmm..

Stormy weather

There must be 12 inches of snow out there. It has been snowing non-stop since yesterday, although it was not as bad yesterday. I can barely look outside the window with visibility so bad. Doug is supposed to be arriving this afternoon, although from the looks of things I doubt the plane will be able to land. I shovelled twice yesterday, the first time while Sasha was taking her nap, and the second I just bundled her up and dragged her outside. I am not even going to bother this morning. I might lose her in the storm. As it is she did a face plant in one of my snow banks, which she thoroughly enjoyed. They are reporting that TO will not be getting a white Christmas this year. How can that be? Even if it doesn't snow on the day, how is the 3 feet of snow on my lawn going to melt in time? If it is, then why the hell am I shovelling? I think we shall just wait for D to get home...how are we going to entertain ourselves in the meantime Sash?

My birthday is coming up. When I was little I used to think that the whole Christmas hullaballooo was all about me. I was pretty narcissistic then...and maybe a tad now. Just a tad. Granted, back when I was a mere sapling Christmas wasn't celebrated on such a grand scale in Malaysia. There were no expensive set dinner menus in restaurants, no Christmas sales, and definitely no trees sold at Ikea. But there were still celebrations held at hotels and such. My Mum did not cook so we would eat at Holiday Inn (then a posh hotel) ALOT if the maid went AWOL, hence I remember a couple of kiddie Christmas parties there, or what I took to be the run up to my birthday. The funny thing is we never celebrated my birthday on my birthday. No one was ever around. I could also never have the whole attention getting birthday party in school because there was no school. So I don't really know how I got the idea that the whole festive shebang was for me, but I just did. The same sort of anti-climax applies today. The whole run up to Christmas/my birthday is the fun part, but once you hit the day itself it sort of becomes a lunch bag let down. Usually everyone, including myself, is all partied out by Christmas morning. So can you imagine how difficult it is to keep up the momentum one more day.

And those who celebrate birthdays close to or on extremely commercialized holidays will understand me when I say I never get as many presents as everyone assumes I do. No, I do not get the Christmas present and the birthday present the next day..I get an all in one. If I am lucky I get 2 presents rolled up in 1...usually it is 1 present for 2 occasions, so technically I only get half presents. This is done best by my darling husband who bless his heart is extremely generous, but cheap. He proposed on Christmas so that year I didn't even get a 2 in one..it was a 3 in one. This year we are getting the painting (delivery and hanging on Monday..yay), so instead of buying silly gifts for each other (which I like) we get something we can keep for a very long time (although I have tried to argue that handbags can last just as long). But I have just realized that he probably also means that the painting is also my birthday present, so technically he has 1 occasion invested in it while I have 2. He's done it again! But I shouldn't complain..we bought Sasha books for Christmas, we have read them to her many times, and we are going to wrap them again for her to open..hahahahaha...poor kid. But at least her birthday is in April.

Comments please

What do you think of this painting? It is a 43" x 48" oil on canvas. Seriously, comments would be appreciated. Please note, I did not paint this (so if you totally detest it, go ahead)..but I am interested in getting it. However, as many who know me will attest, my art appreciation skills are underwhelming. I love this painting though. I really do. I plan on hanging it opposite my bed so I can pretend that it is a window, and I can enjoy the play of light daily. I used to wake up to another beautiful painting when I used to live with my parents, cant describe it really,but it was dark and rather abstract. I loved that too. I used to wonder why I liked it so much, but I guess I was in a pretty dark place then.

I just hope D likes it as much as I do. He has not seen it other than on the gallery website. He left the gallery before we got to see this particular painting for an appointment, leaving me alone to find this treasure. He will be back from Cambers on Sunday, and if I want that painting I should get it soon. If you think we have difficulty choosing furniture, you should be a fly on the wall when we look for art (well, actually this is the first time we are buying a real, serious, painting together, as we also consider posters from museums art if framed properly). He likes things big, and vibrant, whereas I prefer the more understated classic that creates an impact. He thinks a painting is only a painting if it is a landscape, and the more realistic the better. Oh, and it has to be Fall scenery, or winter. I hate winter landscapes as most of the canvas is white..whats up with that? And I dont like paintings that are too red, or yellow. So imagine us in a gallery as one goes ooooh, and the other ugh. When one asks if they had the same painting, but bigger, while the other asks to see more blues please. He wants to see strong brush strokes, I like Dutch style strokes (dont ask me to elaborate, remember my underwhelming knowledge of art). I think this will be a good compromise because well, I like it..so he should be nice and compromise. It is after all my time of year.

The dark side...

As with most of the web-aware, I have a profile on Facebook. I seek and collect friends; I post on walls. I don't really have time to participate in the fun stuff like adding the applications, vampire related activities and/or join the various groups I am invited to join, but I try to stay current. It has been fun... until today.

Today I was brusquely rejected, or rather my invitation to become a friend was ruthlessly rejected by someone I thought would appreciate the invitation. I found out this morning, and immediately commenced the five steps of grief. Yes, I may be a bit of a drama queen here, but it is MY blog. Anyway, I went into denial. No, no, how can this be? I cannot be rejected. He must have clicked on the wrong button. Or maybe it was another person with the same name. How can this be? (I get repetitive when in denial). Why would anyone reject a Facebook friend invitation? This went on for a few hours, as I then progressed to anger. Prickhead. You broke up with me so how can you be angry with me??! Dufus. And that's the reason we broke up. Idiot. This didn't last long as I can never stay angry for long. I started thinking that if I stopped thinking of exes as prickheads and dufuses I may have a better chance of beating my brother's 300 gazillion friends (How does he do this? All his exes are his friends..). Post milliseconds of bargaining (I figured God would have more than enough on his plate to bother with my offer of a deal), I started feeling depressed about the rejection. Was it such a bad breakup that prickhead would reject my web induced olive branch even today when we have presumably matured. Am I such a bad person, so thoroughly despised? Not many people are despised in this world..unliked, hated, but not despised. And one has to be despised to be rejected like this.

And this went on until about lunchtime. So after much consideration and reflection, I finally accepted that some people, especially Mr Fell of the ugly tree and broke every branch, will remain the dick heads that they are. I have moved on to bigger and brighter (Take THAT you friend rejector!) and I should not waste another minute on this person..as those minutes are better spent looking for other potential friends.

Yet another weekend nearly over

We have had a busy weekend. On Friday night we had a couple and their 12 year old son over for dinner. We had dinner at theirs a few weeks ago and we wanted to reciprocate their warm hospitality. It is getting increasingly difficult to have a dinner party with Sash wanting our attention all the time. We can just about get her to sit in front of the TV in the basement by herself for the salad course, but after that it sort of progresses into chaos if attention is not given. When she was younger we could set her on the floor or in her jumper in the dining room, but now she either wants one of us to accompany her in the basement or she will start playing with the cutlery on the table, mimicking our actions. It is getting to the point where only one of us can be at the table at any one time, so we have this sort of tag team routine when it comes to entertaining the guests. I must say we are getting rather good at picking up the conversation from where the other left off. Sometimes we wonder why we even go through the hassle of entertaining at home, but other than sitting at home our lonesome selves for the next 10 years, what choice do we have? So we keep on tagging...

This morning was different. We had our four neighbour families over for Christmas brunch, to start off the season. L (Model),R (retired ballet star) and Stella (14 months) from across the street; W (VP), M (Producer) and Jordon (16 months) who live directly next to L, R, and Stella; V (Lawyer), H (architect), and Spencer (6 months) who live directly next to us; and R (ex-teacher), K (Trader), and Walker (18 months) who live 2 houses down, came over to enjoy fruit salad, pastries, sausages, quiche, freshly squeezed orange juice, and copious amounts of coffee.

The house was packed to the brim but we had so much fun just enjoying a nice Sunday morning together, watching the snow fall outside..ok, cursing the snow outside. I find that brunch is perfect for having young families over. The food can be made (ok, admittedly bought ready made) bite-sized so Mummy and Daddy can eat while running after junior, it is that time right before nap time so kids are not so cranky, and everyone has the rest of the day to do whatever they want to do. As we have no family nearby, occasions like this are as close to family gatherings as we can get. Sash had so much fun she had to go outside in her new hat to wish everyone bye bye..

Trash

On a related note, the black trash bin is a new addition to the family. We inherited the green compost bin and blue recycling bin from previous owners. We bought the grey bin when we moved in to act as a trash bin, and leaves and trimmings were placed in a paper bag bought at the store in packs of 5 for I guess around 3 dollars. A few weeks ago we were informed that our street has been chosen to take part in a pilot programme to test out new black trash bins. The city is planning to charge for trash disposal to encourage recycling and composting. Collection of the smallest bin will be free, while larger sizes will be charged on an annual basis..basically they have yet again found an indirect way to tax us. We chose the medium sized bin as the smallest would have been ridiculously small for 2 weeks worth of garbage. The neighbours are however not very happy with this. It seems this street almost always gets chosen for pilot projects. Like when they introduced the large blue recycling bins. Before that they relied on small blue crates. And before that, grey crates. So if you have been living here long enough, you have all these outdated containers that you cannot get rid of. Yup, the city gives you all these bins, but dont tell you how to bin all the other bins. Try putting them on the driveway..you will be told off for not having rubbish out. This is especially inconvenient as most of the houses only have mutual driveways so you have up to 8 bins lined up in a narrow driveway. We are lucky as we have a private driveway but we still have a line of bins standing at attention, providing a playground for pesky racoons. Did I mention that TO is the racoon capital of the world? We have to secure our bins with bungee cords as they have learned to get to the garbage regardless of whatever clasp you have on the bins. Trash is such a messy issue....





This is how Sasha goes to day care on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Poor kid loves being outdoors but hates being bundled up. And I hate spending 10 minutes coaxing her into snow pants, sweater, scarf, hat/hood, jacket, gloves, socks and snow boots. Then after putting on my gear, and arriving at day care, taking them all off again. And we do this when we go out in the garden too..

Environmental anxiety

Do you get environmentaly anxious? I do. Once in a while I wonder whether I am doing all that I can do. I think I am. But am I?

I try to divert as much as I can. I place the recyclables in the Blue Bins, the compostable matter and diapers in the green bins (used paper towels are compostable too), and leaves and trimmings go in the grey bins. The fact that garbage is placed in the small black bin and collected every 2 weeks of course encourages me to divert our outgoings as much as possible. I use cloth carriers when shopping and try not to use plastic bags, unless I need them to use as trash liners then I collect what I need for the month. I do this also because I have no space for all those pesky bags. I shop locally to minimise my carbon footprint. Well, also because I hate driving and I like to walk to the shops. We bought this house to be on the subway line so we would be able to rely on only one car. So OK, this is also because I hate to drive and I like being 7 stops from the main sights and attractions. We have a zippy all wheel drive car, not a gas guzzling SUV. This is of course also because the car is paid for and suits us fine. So I start to think..am I really being environmentally friendly or am I just assuaging my environmental guilt with these half arsed deeds. Should I be doing things that would inconvenience me more? Should I stop travelling or flying? Well, I cant do that because my staying put anxiety will definitely trounce environmental anxiety. Should I stop flushing? I tried that..then felt anxious whenever we had visitors wanting to use the loo. Should I lower the thermostat to save energy? We already do that and any lower I will be on the first flight out to Florida. Energy saving bulbs? They are getting better but still not out of the public loo mood of lighting. We use halogen inside, energy saving ones outside, LED Christmas lights and dimmers on almost all fixtures. We use environmentally friendly cleaners and double concentrated cold water detergent. What else can I do? Any suggestions?

White Sunday

We put up the tree just in time for the White weekend...

We finally put up the tree tonight. After dinner, we dug up our box of ornaments in the loft, retrieved our tree (pre-lit) from the shed, and started piling on the festive cheer. Last year we had the boxes stacked in our living room, then flew off to KL before we had time to even think of putting the tree up. Tonight it felt like we were looking at all our ornaments collected for the first time.

My personal favourite

Bought these in Delft, May 2007